Active Duty Real Estate

Have had a very strong ammonia smell in house for months now and landlord will not take care of issue.ever since we started renting this house it had a ammonia smell but it kept getting worst and I could never find where it was coming from. But finally I found it coming from the sliding glass door track and I explained that to [redacted] and the repair guy. They have said they have came out twice and never smelt anything but I have no proof they were ever out here. I have emailed [redacted] multiple times about this issue and he keeps saying they don't smell anything basically calling me a liar. Because as soon as you walk in the house you smell the ammonia. I was on vacation all last week and [redacted] said they would come out that week and check it out well when I got home I still smelled the ammonia and I didn't receive a note or email about there findings. I had to email him Sunday night 3/6/15 to get any information out of him. They are just very unprofessional and do not care for there customers we pay $975 a month and we have to live in a ammonia smell filled house its not right at all. Desired SettlementWe need the smell out of this house we cannot keep living in the smell its making us sick. Or they need to let us terminate our lease.Business Response This maintenance request was dealt with on 2 separate occasions. Both times there was never any smell identified. We had 3 individual maintenance personnel go to this property and no odor was smelled or identified. We did have one of our vendors clean the floors with an enzyme busting solution and cleaned the sliding door track just as a precautionary measure. The owner of the company also was present for this work. The tenant was never present for any work as we were asked to go while they were out of town to get married the first time and the second time we were asked to go out while they were on their honeymoon. The only reason this complaint was filed was because they did not pay their rent on time because they said they were holding the rent until the problem was corrected which you can legally not do in the state of NC....and asked us to waive the late fee after we told them they could not do so. The only reason there would be an ammonia smell would be from pet urine. This is the first set of renters for this home and the homeowners never had pets which was verified in written statements from the surrounding neighbors.

This company has removed furniture from my house, failed to collect a full security deposit, made unapproved repairs,and reduced rent without approvalI was told my tenant had bad credit and we would collect a large security deposit of $1900 around july 7th 2015. On July 9th the lease was signed. The last page was an addendum that says the tenant would pay 1/2 of the security deposit in monthly installments. That fact was never mentioned to me until after the lease was already signed into effect. The tenant lived in the house until July of 2016. Only $1100 of the $1900 security deposit was collected, despite the fact that the tenant lived there for a year. The tenant was evicted for failure to pay rent. The locks were changed on 6/29/16. The tenant had 7 days to remove his property. All of his property was left behind. Active duty management told me they are going to sell the furniture to help pay the tenants back rent. They sent emails to a few used furniture stores in [redacted] and were unable to sell it. [redacted] told me verbatim "we will not let the tenant back in to get the items, he had access to the house for 7 days." I was later told that the items were removed 'free of charge.' When I brought this to the attention of the company and expressed interest in some of the items I received multiple reasons on why the furniture is gone and where it went. I was asked at one time to lower my rent by $50 a month. I responded with "will you let me know what my monthly deposit will be if rent is reduced." I never received a response. My new tenant signed a lease. The lease document was uploaded to the web site. I could not find the security deposit or monthly rent page. I brought this to the companies attention and asked for those missing pages. As soon as I received the missing pages I noticed that the rent was lowered without approval. Many repairs exceeding the $200 contract limit were completed without approval. The tip of the iceburg was the painting. I was told that the house needed to be repainted. I asked for pictures of the walls and details on the condition of the walls. I also offered to drive and paint the walls myself, as I only live two hours away. At that time, I was told that the house had already been painted. When all of these items were brought to the attention of the owner she seemed like it didnt matter. This company has been very dishonest in their practices and they do not manage properties ethically. Desired SettlementI would like the remainder of the security deposit that the company failed to collect, I would like compensation for the furniture that the tenant left on my property to help pay his back rent, and I would like $50 a month that was reduced from my rental fee from now until the new contract is completed. Business Response This homeowner is no longer affiliated by our firm as of 9/4/2016, which was the end of our contract which we did not renew due to several factors. 1. This homeowner was in default on their loan which they failed to notify our office as it states in our property management contract. I have included a copy of the foreclosure notice from the bank. The reason they did not disclose that information was due to the fact that they were waiting to close on their new home. They waited until after they had already secured their construction loan in June and failed to make any payments after that period. 2. They have had renters moveout of their property before and they understand that a tenant security deposit is used to make repairs to the home to bring it back to it's original state. I have enclosed an email that was sent to the homeowners showing how we distribute the tenant security deposits. You can see she responded with understanding of how it works. 3. The homeowners were given the option of being paid in full by an agency who was going to pay the tenants rent, late fees, and remainder of security deposit in full. They declined to accept these funds. I have included an email with the homeowners right of refusal. The sheriffs department changed the locks to this property so the tenant could not access the home. Per NC laws, we are to allow the tenant in to the property to collect their belongings. Any trash remaining is thereafter removed from the property.Per our property management agreement we have the right to negotiate rent on our homeowners behalf. We do not need homeowners permission to do tenant responsible moveout repairs. Our contract states the home will be brought back up to it's original state and all vendors are paid out before any deposit is applied towards rent.This homeowner still has an outstanding balance of $575 owed to a vendor for painting. We cannot pay back what hasn't been paid for. If this homeowner wanted their rent from the prior tenant they should have accepted the payment offered to them from the county agency.Within 24 hours of us repairing the property the homeowners accepted an new tenant that we secured for a 1 year lease. Even at this time they still did not relay to us the fact that the home was in default, which is deceitful not only to us but more so to the tenant.Consumer Response I informed [redacted] in every phone conversation that we haven't made a payment because we did not receive rent for 3 months. I was very open an honest about the situation. In every conversation he said he understood. I provided proof that the loan was brought up to current before the date requested by the bank and provided that proof to you. I was not aware at the time or the eviction that the homeowner still owed 1/2 of his security deposit which is why I denyed the funds. I was never told he was making payments on the security deposit when the lease was signed. Trash was not the only thing that remained in the property. There were at least 3 tvs, two couches, a love seat, coffee and end tables, a bed, a refrigerator, etc. all of these items the property management company attempted to sell to pay back rent since the tenant did not remove them in the slotted time. The items, however, were not sold they were just taken. I do not have an outstanding balance as I have an email from the owner of the company stating that I was not responsible for the painting bill because it was not approved. I was even advised by Ryan not to accept the assisting agencies funds because the tenant was habitually behind on rent and he was likely going to become delinquent again.