Watson Management Company, Inc.

The following information is provided after review of the move-out paperwork, move-out video and conference with the property manager who checked out the property after Mr*** vacated
Mr*** was not charged a double deposit. He was charged an increased deposit based upon the
screening information we received when his application to rent was processed
The charges withheld from his deposit not relating to cleaning or hauling were: two days holdover rent $106.66, unpaid City of Spokane utility bill $203.95, $administrative move-out fee as provided for in the Rental Contract
Mr*** was not charged for the following items that could have been charged to his deposit: $for not returning the second door key issued at move-in; cleaning of the kitchen and stair carpeting that was not done when the rest of the carpeting was cleaned, excessive nail holes in the walls that had to be repaired, or for washing walls in the living room that were heavily soiled
Mr*** was provided with documentation of the charges against his deposit. He is welcome to contact Watson Management at 325-to make an appointment to meet with the property manager and view the move-out video which clearly shows that with the exception of having part of the carpeting in the house cleaned, it is obvious that nothing else was cleaned and there was debris left behind that had to be hauled. Attached are photos that show some of the most heavily soiled areas, but do not represent all of the areas that had to be cleaned. The cleaning is done by cleaners employed by Watson Management. The hauling is done by an independent contractor, not Watson Management employees

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because: no way possible did I say evict the renters My son just died I said Im in no position to sell right now Rawley then said tenants want to buy and I (Rawley) will have the house empty in a couple of monthsTherefore I asked renters if they were moving and renters response was they didn't want to but they received a eviction noticeThat's how it all came downSo The tenants were asked to leave in the same month of there wedding who would do that? In the heated phone conversation with Rawley and he threatened me with keeping his contract on my house and making me pay $a month for one year Unless I take over and move in. The final outcome will be I'm taking over my homeWithout any problems. *** ***
Sincerely,
*** ***

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because:One because PMC called me and asked if I wanted to sell my house b out of the blueMy son just died that week I said this is not a good time to talk about sellingThen months later PMC called again I missed the call I called right back the owner of PMC said tenants want to buy your house I said no its not for sale He then said this was June 13, they want to be out asap so your house will be empty by end of August. Not once was anything mentioned I was moving back in or selling my home. The tenants do not want to moveThey have been very happy with the house. At this point I want to Fire the PMC get my keys and damage deposit and be done.
Sincerely,
*** ***

It is not possible to respond to this complaint without knowing who the complainant is or where they live. If you provide that information, we will be happy to respond

We believe we have calculated these amounts correctly, but in order to resolve this matter amicably Watson Management Co. is issuing a check to the City of Spokane Utilities for $9.48.  This amount should be reflected on the next billing statement from the City of Spokane.

Ms. [redacted] contacted our office and asked us to have the tenant vacate because she was moving back into the home.  Accordingly, we provided the tenant a notice to vacate.  NO EVICTION OCCURRED.  We did charge Ms. [redacted] $50 for the cost of serving the tenant the notice that Ms. [redacted]...

requested.  Ms. [redacted] executed a year-to-year contract that automatically renews and she remains bound to the terms of that contract.  I did advise her that I would abate monthly charges and hold the contract in suspense as long as she personally occupies the dwelling.  Should she attempt to rent or sell the property, I will enforce the terms of the contract as written.  Additionally, we contacted Ms. [redacted] by email requesting that she allow the current tenant to extend their tenancy for one to two months at the tenants' request, and she has not responded.  At the present time the tenant that Ms. [redacted] says we "evicted" still lives in the property and is scheduled to vacate on August 31, 2017, pursuant to the notice to vacate.  We will continue to perform our responsibilities under the contract until Ms. [redacted] physically occupies the house.

Regarding notifying Ms. [redacted] that the tenant was interested in purchasing the property, our office, as a courtesy to her, notified her of the tenant's interest in purchasing.  When I spoke with Ms. [redacted] on or about June 13, 2017, she directed me to have the tenants vacate as of August 31st and accordingly we provided the tenants with a notice to vacate.  I did not agree to any termination of the contract on that date and as in the attached letter from July 26, 2017, I advised her that if she was occupying the dwelling I would abate the monthly management fees through the expiration of the management agreement.  Assuming it is truly her intent to occupy the property, paying no fees beginning September 1, 2017, through the natural expiration of the contract on June 9, 2018, the contract should have no bearing on her occupancy of the home.  We believe it is in Ms. [redacted]'s best interests for us to complete the inspection of the property at the time the tenant vacates and to handle the disposition of the deposit for her in accordance with the Residential Landlord Tenant Act and the terms and conditions of the tenant's rental agreement.

At the time Mr. [redacted] executed his rental contract a staff member of Watson Management faxed to the City of Spokane Utilities Billing Department a request for a closing bill and notified them that all future bills should be directed to the service address.Mr. [redacted]'s rental contract is very...

specific that the tenant pays all utilities.  It is noted in the utilities provision on page 1 of the rental contract, and was further acknowledged by Mr. [redacted] on the "Other Items Addendum" to the contract.  The utility bill is not in any individual's name.  The bill comes to the service address, or during vacancies, comes to our office, but the account continues to be in the name of the service address at [redacted].  The City of Spokane is typically accommodating in circumstances such as this and Mr. [redacted] should contact a credit manager at the City of Spokane Utilities Billing Department at ([redacted] and make reasonable arrangements with them to bring his bill current.  The rental contract is very specific in two separate areas that this bill is Mr. [redacted]'s responsibility and when he did not receive any bills he should have initiated inquiries to the City of Spokane Utilities Billing Department.

Review: On Feb. 17th 2013 my cousin [redacted] and myself applied for a property online through Watson Management. On Monday Feb 18th, 2013 a lady from the company called and explained to my cousin that because we have pets we are not eligible because it is a no pet unit also, that they are going to try to refund the application fee because you cannot send in the application fee until you have viewed the property, which we had not. Meanwhile, we had called a few times to find out about the money, and spoke twice with a gentleman named [redacted]. We did what they suggessted and nothing was happening. Finally on Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 I once again contacted Watson Management and asked to speak with a manager or supervisor and was transfered to [redacted], who told me the same things as before in all of the previous conversations so, when I stopped him and told him I have done all of this he said "ok let me make sure we haven't already processed the refund, I'm going to put you on hold" I waited just a few minutes before he came back and told me "I see we have not sent out your refund and I can reverse it back onto your card." he was then unable to reverse it back onto the card due to their new system. So he then asked to put me back on hold to get permission to write me a check. Returned to the line and said "ok it was approved can you be here at 3. I can have it for you at the front desk." When I arrived at 3 [redacted] told me I was misinformed and he was not writing me a check, proceeded to use his blidness as a crutch as to why it would take 2 more weeks to be able to look through my file. Told me that he had never talked to me and knows nothing about my situation so when I asked for his name he gave me his last name, when I asked for his first name he denied until I explained when you answer the phone you use your first name I won't know if you are the one I talked to until I know your name. Finally, he told me his name [redacted], which was in fact the same guy. He continued to argue in the lobby and call me a liar.Desired Settlement: I would like my $78.00 back and even possibly gas reimbursment for driving to their office accross town for no apparent reason instead of them having some common courtesy and calling to inform me. I am a single mom of 2, that works very hard for my money, and my time and gas are not free. That money could have helped with diapers for the last 2 months while I was waiting on it.

Business

Response:

After researching to be sure the fee had not already been refunded, a check was issued and mailed to the complainant on the day she came in to the office.

Review: I ignored the horrible ratings Watson Management had received from many different sources and rented from them anyway. In the 8 months I have been renting from Watson I have had nothing but bad experiences. The staff at Watson have refused to return calls, refuse to follow through with agreed upon repairs, ignore rental agreement terms, and worst of all have been down right rude to my family. They did not give any notice when showing up for a walk through (as required by law). They have not completed (or even started) work to our home that has become a safety hazard to my children. When we moved in both fireplace mantles were broken and chipped- leaving sharp edges for my kids to hurt themselves on. The owner of the property even commented on the problem and apologized for the work not being done. They have ignored the agreed upon terms of our rental agreement, they have lied about equipment and conditions of the home, the list goes on and on. The last straw was yelling at my family this morning in their office because we asked about repairs that had been promised. The answer to our question was "I'm going on vacation- it's not my problem"Desired Settlement: All I want is for the repairs to my house to be completed- or even started. I have asked several times for the lawn to be seeded as well. The lawn was dead when we moved in, and it needs re-seeded.

Business

Response:

The conversation that occurred this morning between the complainant's wife and our property manager was materially misrepresented in this complaint. The property manager politely told the tenant that she is going on vacation, that she is not the manager that ordered the work done, and that the tenants would need to speak with the manager who had ordered the work. There was no raising of voices during the conversation.

With regard to the work on the fireplace hearths, a work order was issued on April 4th to an independent contractor who schedules his own time. Today we again contacted the contractor to check on the status and requested that he put a priority on contacting the tenants to make an appointment to repair the hearths.

The only entry that has been made into the property during this tenancy was with a proper notice to enter and a property manager from Watson Management accompanied a representative of the property owner.

With regard to the lawn, we are aware that the lawn was in poor condition at the time the tenants moved in. Accordingly, this spring we installed a new automatic sprinkler system to facilitate lawn maintenance. We have contacted a lawn service to evaluate the condition of the grass and to make recommendations.

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 9526781, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me if the business follows through with the actions they have promised.

Regards,

Upon moving back to Spokane from Chicago, I rented through Watson Management out of urgency and interest in inexpensive housing. Before moving into the property, I have heard their practices are underhanded, unprofessional and alienating. Other resources have reported poor reviews of Watson Management as well.
Originally, the staff of the business seemed pleasant and kind before renting the property but immediately following the signing of the lease were rude, crass and at best aloof. Seemingly recognizing the commitment having now signed the lease, the staff lost interest in professionalism altogether.
The property was in poor condition prior to moving in, having various maintenance issues unaddressed. I was assured the issues would be resolved before moving into the house, but was disappointed to see it was a lie. I had to deal with multiple shattered windows (which apparently were to be replaced due to being outdated and not up to code) easily a month after moving in. I was also told the house would be painted prior to moving in, which didn't happen until three months after.
Furthermore, the house was infested with bedbugs, as I realized after all of my belongings were already in the house. When I notified Watson Management, I was told to bring proof of the infestation. I collected a few bedbugs and brought them to the office in a container as well as photographed the bedbugs in the house. They denied the photos were of the infestation in the house by claiming there was no way to verify the photos were recent despite having an automatic date. The woman working the main desk even went as far to blame the previous "ethnic" tenants, suggesting the "ethnic" tenants are "dirty and unknowledgeable to cleaning standard." Eventually, they paid for the house to be treated after battling them over the issue for far too long.
Finally - as if I didn't have more to say - I was discriminated against by some staff of Watson Management. A check I had written to pay rent was refused because they apparently don't accept checks despite I had always paid rent by check. It was suggested that they wouldn't accept my check because it would bounce without having any reason to expect it to bounce. They implied, heavily, that I am too poor to afford the rent and demanded a money order instead. The ordeal made that month's payment late and they were not hesitant to burden me with a late fee regardless of the fact that I did have the money and I wrote and submitted the check on time.
I strongly advise anyone considering renting from Watson Management to reconsider. It would seem this company is only interested in collecting money without having provided the full services they advertise as a property management company. As I now understand, it is a common practice of them to fee tenants unnecessarily and excessively for inconsequential or nonexistent issues. The entire duration of my experience with them has been very negative and offensive. I would go as far to say I have had better experiences sleeping in the back seat of my car than dealing with their childish tendencies. And to the manager of Watson Management, so proud to hang that newspaper article about how you are blind yet professional somehow, cherish that article. With the way you and you inferiors behave, it's the only good review you will ever know.

Worst experience with a company ever. Was told a house was ready to move in, and ended up having to clean the house ourselves, just to get our stuff into the home. Never fixed anything - including 2 broken toilets. Upon moving out, was charged over $400 for a hot tub cover on a hot tub that was not in-use EVER, and never touched. I would NEVER in a million years recommend renting through Watson Management!!!!!

We rented a property through Watson Management for one year. From the beginning, they were aggressive and under-handed in their business practices. They seem to only be interested in protecting themselves and their bottom line. They falsely accused us of damaging the property when there was no possible way we were at fault (it was caused by winter freeze, and we had only lived there in the summer months), and ended up rescinding their accusation when the problem was assessed/repaired. They were slow to respond to maintenance requests. The management was cold and curt in correspondence and from what we could tell, were not straightforward with the property owner when we gave our 30-day notice, etc. We had an acquaintance whom was interested in renting the property following us, but they were vague and cold with them. Now the home has sat empty for over two months since we moved out. In our opinion, they were unprofessional in their practices. It was an all-around negative experience, causing us to make certain we were out of the property as soon as our lease term ended.

This event detailed below happened a little over a year ago. I told myself that, out of principle, I would file this report and have just remembered to. These events are per the best of my memory and the documentation that I kept. Upon the close of our 1 year lease of a home through Watson Management of Spokane my roommate and I received a bill of $142.03 in excess of our $500 deposit. This came as quite a surprise to us and we felt we had left our property in better condition than we had entered it, had not had any issues as renters and certainly didn’t damage anything beyond normal wear and tear.
The itemized bill was as follows:
City of Spokane closing bill: $66.69
Clean house per cleaning checklist, replace burner range pans: $139.28
Replace carpet in bedroom: $386.06
Admin Moveout Fee (due per lease if vendors hired): $50.00
I contacted Watson and set up an appointment. Their assessor was out for the month and thus they agreed to postpone our required payment date. In the meantime, we double checked ourselves. We had closed our electric and gas bills through the power company and new we didn’t have a remaining balance with them. There had been a tear in the carpet when we had moved in and we had submitted a report of this using their paperwork and within their stated timeframe. Our house was pretty clean and thus we did not understand why so much money was needed to clean our house.
I met with the man who had assessed our move out. He asked me what concerns I had and I shared the above. He had me watch his video recording of our move out assessment while he looked for our paperwork for the tear in the carpet. While watching this video the first mentioned statement was that we hadn’t had the carpets professionally cleaned. This wasn’t true as we had provided them with our receipt of doing so the day of our move out, of which he ultimately found. The remainder of the video had him going through house. A few items were not as of clean as they needed be, most notably the burner pans had not been replaced and we had missed the area on the stove underneath the range. However, his assessment included scuff marks on the bathroom floor noted as dirt and debris—something we had also included in the paperwork at the time of move in, collected condensation underneath the fridge due to a leak that had been present at the time of the move in (I do not recall noting this in the paperwork) and a number of statements about items and marks on the walls and whatnot. After reviewing the video I explained these things to him. In the meantime he had found our paperwork regarding the floor. He asked me what I’d like him to do and I stated that I wanted the ‘fines’ removed and our deposit back. He agreed to this sans the oven burner pans and about a third of the cleaning cost. I then noted a few concerns I had to him. Most notably that the Watson pre move in property condition report included many minute details about the property but failed to note one of the most obvious issues with the house, that $140 worth of cleaning seemed very high even if the dirty items had been actually dirty and that his evaluation of our property post move out had been highly inaccurate. He stated something akin to ‘sometimes we miss things and are in a hurry’ and that the cleaning cost 30 dollars an hour for three workers at a time, if I remember correctly—making the total hourly amount of cleaning needed roughly about 13 hours worth of work. There is no way the issues noted in his video would take anywhere near 13 hours of work. He made mention of other renters of whom had $3,000 dollars in cleaning fees—300 hours of cleaning per his prior explanation. He again stated that we would receive the entirety of our deposit back aside from the two costs. I figured the issue was settled and went about my business.
When we received our deposit back, about 2 months later, the initial number promised, of which I should have gotten in writing, had a $50 ‘Admin Moveout Fee’ tacked back on and thus was fifty less than he had promised me. I decided that, instead of attempting to retrieve this money I would, instead, write this complaint. In total, this initial problem lasted about 3.5 months.

Review: Watson Management claims damages to property that I disagree with, so I requested proper proof that the services actually accrued and was charged properly for labor hours. I sent them a letter cirtified mail requesting these items on march 27 2013. Watson Management has fail to comply or refund funds of my deposit as requested in my letter. in fact they have fail to respond in anyway. I called said company and they still failed to answer the question I have had even when reading the file made for this property.Desired Settlement: I want a refund of my deposit paid for the property

Business

Response:

It is unfortunate that [redacted] feels it is necessary to involve the Revdex.com. He contacted our office by telephone and we offered to meet with him in our office to allow him to review a video that documents the condition of the property he rented both before and immediately after his tenancy. [redacted] is requesting information that is not available to us from our vendors. They charge us based upon their time and materials, keeping in mind that all businesses mark up products in the normal course of business. The detail he is requesting is no different than questioning any retailer what they paid for a product and wanting to argue the price they determine to sell it at. Once again, we extend to [redacted] the opportunity to meet with one of our property managers and review the before and after videos, as well as his property condition report to confirm that he did not restore the property to the condition he received it in less reasonable wear and tear as provided for by law. Soiled items are reasonable wear and tear. We have reviewed the invoices and the video and believe that the charges against [redacted]'s deposit are fair. Please encourage [redacted] to contact our office directly to arrange a meeting where we believe we can amicably resolve any questions he may have.

Consumer

Response:

The information I have requested from Watson management mostly would be on any sign work order that they would.have signed once.the work was done. As of this point due to the statues of limitations Watson management has accepted the terms I placed on the letter written.