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Buckingham Properties Lake Tahoe

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Reviews Buckingham Properties Lake Tahoe

Buckingham Properties Lake Tahoe Reviews (1)

Review: Fraud, fraud, fraud. We rented a house in Lake Tahoe for 6 nights for over 2k. Upon arrival the house was at 90 degrees. We called the property manager because after ten hours of driving with toddlers we had to have the air condition turned on. They then informed us there was no air conditioning. We explained we had toddlers and they could get heat stroke we were told to take the kids outside until the house cooled down or leave all the windows open, windows without screens. They told us to put bug spray on the kids. They refused to refund anything and their manager [redacted] was rude, and told us it was a weather condition and there was no refund. We ended up driving an additional two hours to stay at the Northstar Resort. [redacted] hung up on us after telling us they don’t issue refunds. Now we’ve had to hire a lawyer to sue them. If you want a vacation don’t use Buckingham unless you want no assurances of what you might end up withDesired Settlement: The property was uninhabitable and we did not stay in the property. We want a full refund and reimbursement for the additional costs to find a similar property to place our family in. The total is $5,917

Business

Response:

Buckingham Properties Lake Tahoe would like to respond to the complaint on 7/28/2016 with an ID of 11600618. I would like to address the complaints brought up in the Customer’s Statement of the Problem. Before I address the specific accusations, I would like to provide background on the booking process of the Guest. I will then provide an account of the conversations between Buckingham and the Guest as it relates to the Customer’s Statement of the Problem. Finally, I will directly address the specific complaints and demands referenced in the Customer’s Statement of the Problem. Included with this letter ten Attachments that are referenced throughout the response. Reservation Process The Guest booked the home sleeping Bear Lodge (the “Property”), managed by Buckingham Properties Lake Tahoe (“Buckingham”), through an Outside Travel Agency called [redacted] markets a selection of Properties on their own website, including the sleeping Bear Lodge (Attachment 1). [redacted] was responsible for all initial correspondence with the Guest as they inquire on the Property, and collected all payment for the reservation from the Guest. [redacted] then sent the Reservation to Buckingham for us to Accept or Reject. This request is sent to us as an email and also an Online Reservation that goes directly into our software as a reservation (Attachment 2). Buckingham is not part of any initial conversation with the Guest regarding in choosing the Property. Buckingham’s only interaction with Guest was at the conclusion of the reservation process, with the signing of a rental agreement and sending Guest access instruction to the Property. The Guest booked Sleeping Bear Lodge through [redacted] on 7/13/2016 (Attachment 2). Buckingham then reached out to the Guest via email with our Rental Agreement for the guest to initial, sign and return back to Buckingham (Attachment 3). The signed contract was received as an email attachment from the Guest’s assistant on 7/15/2016 (Attachment 4). The Property The Property chosen by the Guest, Sleeping Bear Lodge, does not have air conditioning. The home is not marketed as having air conditioning, as is shown clearly in both the Property listing on Buckingham’s websiteand on [redacted]’s website (Attachment 1). The information on the website, was the information that the Guest read prior to reserving the Property. All of this information is fed directly through Buckingham’s reservation software, V12.NET. Air Conditioning in Tahoe is rare, as it is not common for the area to experience temperature that necessitate having it in a home. In fact, Buckingham only has six homes out of our total inventory of eighty-two rental units that have air conditioning (Attachment 5). Guest’s Arrival Guests of Buckingham do not check-in at Buckingham’s office. Rather they go directly to the Property, and access the home with the entry codes provided. As Buckingham does not know the exact timing of our arrivals, the home is left with window down and locked for the safety of the home against wildlife. The Guest arrived to the Property late afternoon (after 4:00PM) on 7/27/2016. The Guest called the Buckingham office and spoke with one of our Reservation specialists. In this conversation, the Guest stated that the home was too hot and asked how to turn on the air conditioning. The Reservation Specialist informed the Guest that the home does not have air conditioning, and the best immediate solution was to open the windows and turn on fans to allow the cooling outside air to cool down the Property. South Lake Tahoe, at that was experiencing unreasonably hot temperature that are rare in the area. Attachment 7 shows a history of the temperatures between 2:00 PM on 7/27/2016 through 4:30 PM on 7/28/2016. Temperatures decrease in the evenings, and can reach the upper forties in the very early hours of the morning. Opening windows, and turning fans on will cool a home down as the outside temperatures decrease. Upon learning that the home did not have air conditioning, the Guest demanded to be moved to another home. The Guest threatened Buckingham’s Reservation Specialist stating that they could “make our lives miserable” and not to “screw with him.” In the conversation with the Reservation Specialist, the Guest said that Buckingham was dishonest for not disclosing that the home did not have air conditioning. As shown in both Buckingham’s property listing and that on [redacted]’s website, the Property does not have air conditioning (Attachment 1). The Property was never advertised as having air conditioning. Although the Reservation Specialist was uncomfortable with how the Guest was treating her, she continued to assist the Guest. The Guest then demanded that Buckingham move them to another home with air conditioning. The Reservation Specialist looked in the reservation software to find that the homes available did not have air conditioning (Attachment 6). The six homes Buckingham manages that do have air conditioning were booked by other Buckingham guests (Attachment 3). The Guest then began to demand to demand a refund at which time the Reservation recommended they call the next day (7/28/2016) and speak to the Managing Partner of Buckingham. The Reservation Specialist had closed the office at this time. All refund requests go through the Managing Partner, and none of our Reservation Specialists can authorize and type of refund without her consent. See Attachment 8 for the statement from Buckingham’s Reservation Specialists regarding the conversation with the Guest. Day After Arrival Around noon on 7/28/2016 the Guest called Buckingham and the call was transferred to the Managing Partner. The guest again threatened Buckingham saying they will “make our lives miserable.” When the guest demanded a full refund due to the weather being too hot, the Managing Partner referenced a Clause in the Rental Agreement that was signed by the guest. Hold Harmless: Buckingham attempts to properly maintain the Property. Renters agree to immediately notify Buckingham of any maintenance problem, so that the situation can be remedied as soon as possible. Buckingham is not responsible for an inconvenience that may occur for which Buckingham has no control. This includes, but is not limited to: power outages, adverse weather conditions, mandatory evacuations, construction, mechanical failure such as pool, hot tubs, television etc. No refunds will be given for occurrences beyond Buckingham’s control, Buckingham shall not be held liable for any injuries that may occur to Renters or their guests as a result of the acts of said Renters and their guests. Buckingham is not responsible for any theft or damage to Renters belongings during their stay at the Property (Attachment 4). Unreasonable warm temperatures fall into the realm of “occurrences beyond Buckingham’s control,” specifically as “adverse weather.” The Managing Partner reiterated what was told to the Guest by the Reservation specialist that the home was not advertised as having air conditioning and the best solution was to open windows. The Guest continued demanding a refund. It should be noted that during the conversations with the Managing Partner, the Guest was extremely hostile to the point the Managing Partner, the Guest was extremely hostile to the point the Managing Partner considered filing a police report. Please see attachment 9 for the written Statement from Buckingham’s Managing Partner on the conversation with the Guest. Conclusion I would like to specifically address the statements in the Customer’s Statement of the Problem: There was no instance of fraud throughout any time in the booking process. It was suggested to the Guest that they open the windows of the Property to all the temperature to decrease. In the Customer’s Statement of the Problem they state there were “windows without screens.” The Property does have screens on all of the windows (Attachment 10). The Guest stated that “They told us to put bug spray on the kids.” Bug spray was never mentioned in any conversation between the Guest and the Managing Partner. The Guest stated that the Managing Partner was being “rude” and “hung up on us.” This is coming from a Guest who verbally threatened multiple Buckingham employees, and during conversations would not let the Buckingham employee get a word in. The Guest is stating that the “house was 90 degrees.” The temperature is a weather condition that was completely beyond the control of Buckingham. The house was shup up (shades down, windows locked) and this does help with keeping the temperature down. Buckingham provided solutions in our control (looked for other homes available in our inventory, and to open the windows) but it was the choice of the Guest to drive to Northeast California Resort. It was stated that we “don’t issue refunds.” Buckingham does issue refunds, however in this case we do not issue refunds due to weather related issues. The guest signed the contract with the information in it. The final statement of the Guest was that there were “no assurances of what you might end up with.” The Guest was provided with all the information on the Property prior to payment and signing a Rental Agreement. In conclusion, we did everything in our power to provide solutions to the Guest when we learned of the problem. All of Tahoe, South Lake Tahoe included, was experiencing unreasonably warm temperatures at the time of the reservation. The Property was never falsely advertised as having air conditioning, as is shown in two property listings of the property. Buckingham is denying the request of the Guest for a refund of $5,917. Included are Attachments with as much information as we have. If you need anything else, or further explanation of anything mentioned in this response, I am happy to oblige. Sincerely, [redacted], Director of Communications

Consumer

Response:

I am rejecting this response because:1. Buckingham claims that we ONLY dealt with [redacted]. There was a call made to [redacted], but only AFTER this entire ordeal and after speaking to [redacted] they apologized for our terrible ordeal and how we were treated by Buckingham and issued a refund for the amount they collected in commission. [redacted] informed my wife that she was sorry for everything and that all she could give in a refund was approx. $726.10 (their commission amount) and they did- it was promptly refunded by Aug 2nd 2016. The [redacted] manager explained that ONLY the property manager for Buckingham was allowed to issue the other monies to us in the form of a refund and that she was very sorry for the fact that Buckingham was unwilling to issue the refund considering the facts. She even went as far as offering to call Buckingham on our behalf to attempt to beseech Buckingham to rethink their decision to not issue a refund. My wife thanked [redacted], the manager at [redacted] and explained that she had spoken to the property manager of Buckingham, [redacted] directly the next day after leaving the property and expressed her disappointment to learn that the home had no ac only upon arrival. The Property managers response was, "Well, you should have known that, most of Lake Tahoe homes don't have ac!" My wife explained that she felt it was the property managers responsibility to disclose this and since they didn't we walked into a home that was 90 degrees with no way to cool it off. The property manager said, "Well, we don't issue refunds for weather conditions!" and hung up on my wife. [redacted] of [redacted] was disappointed to learn that this is how Buckingham had handled it. And now, to see that Buckingham is attempting to place a large part of the responsibility on [redacted] is disappointing, especially considering [redacted] did the right thing by issuing a refund to us of all monies earned by them after all facts were given to them.2. Buckingham also says that we "harassed them". Upon arrival, we thought the ac was broken as there was a thermostat on the wall. After turning the ac down and nothing happening we called Buckingham and we were told to, "Just open the doors and windows" when we called to ask how to turn on the ac. It was 90 degrees outside and even if this cooled the house, it was unsafe to just leave open doors and windows with a two year old. The doors in the house consisted of the front door which was found at the top of approx. 15 wooden stairs and the back doors which lead to a wooden deck that our daughter could have very easily fallen off of. Not to mention the fact that Buckingham clearly states in their response that all doors and windows are closed in order to protect the house. We quickly learned that "protecting the house" doesn't mean just from burglars or vandals but it means from bears. Bears have been known to just wander into peoples homes, (we learned this about 4 days into our trip there from a real estate agent. Us not being from Lake Tahoe, we had no idea) Not to mention the bugs there. When we were told to open the doors and windows and leave them open at night to cool the house, we said, "First we can’t do that with a child-she would fall to her death and second, even if that were possible we would be a feast for all of the bugs" (this was our only reference at this point as we had no idea of the dangers of bears as well) and we were told to, "Put bug repellent on our daughter". The disappointing fact is that [redacted] at Buckingham was very aware we were bringing a baby, why did she not mention to us then that the home had no ac? Perhaps, the proper thing to do, was to inform us that the home had no ac and that since we were bringing a baby -she knows the house better than us-opening doors and windows would simply be a death trap for our daughter. I myself did get on the phone with [redacted] upon arrival and told her this is unacceptable, this should have been disclosed and now we must leave and we have no where to stay. [redacted] said she was sorry but that there was nothing she could do. I told her that I needed her to search her inventory and find us another home we could stay in. [redacted], reluctantly, said she would look and call us back within 15 minutes. After 30 minutes she never called and so we had to call back. But the Buckingham office had closed and we got the answering service. [redacted] had gone home and left us with no call and no alternative. We told the answering the service that we expected a call back from someone as they had our money and we had no where to sleep. After approx. 20 more minutes [redacted] called and said she had no rentals available with ac. I then demanded a refund and [redacted] said this was not something she could authorize. At this point we had to strip our daughter of all clothing as she was beat red from the heat within the house because we had been there for over 45 minutes waiting for Buckingham to find alternative arrangements for us. We left immediately and literally drove while calling to find lodging because the house was simply unsafe for our daughter. Frankly, it was unsafe for all of us, but our daughter was our primary concern.3. Buckingham states the house had fans to cool off the house and they are correct in the house had fans. There were 2 in the living which had 20 foot ceilings and the fans were smaller than standard size which means they was no chance they would be able to cool the room much less the entire home. There was one other fan was in the far back of the house stuck in a window (picture a $10.00 box fan from Walmart) that was simply blowing warm air from outside and bringing it in. 4. Buckingham claims that they NEVER spoke to us regarding the property leading up the rental, but this is simply not true. My wife called and spoke with [redacted] (at Buckingham) multiple times prior to our arrival date. The reason for the telephone calls was to verify if the property had any baby safety gates or did we need to bring or rent them. [redacted] was informed that we were bringing our two year old daughter with us and, therefore, certain precautions needed to be taken. We would need to protect her in the house. [redacted] provided a company name to rent baby gates but ultimately we decided to bring our own. Our assistant was present for each of these calls and over heard each one as my wife was on speaker phone. In fact, we have attached a copy of the call records for proof. Buckingham states in their response that the home has no ac and that we should have known that because it wasn't listed on the website- we should have just known that Lake Tahoe typically doesn't have ac. But as I explained to Buckingham upon arrival, "how would I know that the home doesn't have ac if someone doesn't tell me?" I am not from Lake Tahoe, I am visiting from a different area in the US, an area that has ac, running water and electricity. I, obviously incorrectly, assumed that all homes have ac, especially if the cost is over $400.00 per night. We have hired legal counsel and he said, Buckingham was made perfectly aware on several occasions that we were bringing a baby and it should have been disclosed to us that the home had no ac. Of course, opening doors and windows would be an unsafe environment for our daughter and could have literally lead to her death as the entire living area of the home was technically considered the second story of the home. The attorney also brought up that if they are considering this a "weather issue and beyond their control", wouldn't pipes freezing over also be considered a "weather issue"? And yet, that would make the house uninhabitable. No ac in a home that is 90 degrees with a baby also make the home uninhabitable. This was not a weather issue; this could have been completely unavoidable had [redacted] just told us that the home had no ac upon her learning of the fact that we were bringing a baby weeks before our arrival. Or to make it even better Buckingham should have to put on the website “NO AC” so no one else falls victim to this lack of disclosure. Since Buckingham has mentioned they have over 100 rentals in Lake Tahoe, I believe it should be their responsibility to make full disclosure considering most people renting there are NOT FROM Lake Tahoe. It should be the people renting the property to look out for the one renting and not just be in it for themselves to make the money no matter the cost.Buckingham had weeks leading up to our arrival to inform us that there was no ac, I do not believe, since we are not from Lake Tahoe, that it was our responsibility to ask if it had ac. I believe that is the property managers responsibility. Especially considering they knew full well that a baby would be there and that it would be completely unacceptable to "just open the doors and windows". After driving 10.5 hours to finally arrive at our destination, we had NO CHOICE but to put our daughter back in the car and drive another 1.5 hours to find lodging at a considerable higher rate (Over $1900.00 for only two nights, versus the 6 we needed*see attached charge for this). We searched everywhere but because it was the evening of, it was nearly impossible to find lodging at such short notice. We would have NEVER been in this position had [redacted] at Buckingham disclosed, especially upon learning we were bringing a baby, that the home had no ac or had it been disclosed on the website-NO AC-. Our attorney has advised that we are well within our right to recover the money paid for a property that was 'legitimately uninhabitable' and that we will also be seeking the higher fee for the second lodging we had to pay due to Buckingham's negligence in making full disclosure of the property having no ac thus requiring us to pay an inflated rate for lodging at such short notice. I'm saddened by their statement in saying that it was not their responsibility to disclose the home had no ac, "We should have seen that it wasn’t listed as an amenity on the website" On the website, NO where does it list, "THIS HOME HAS NO AC". Instead the website lists, TV, internet, hot tub, etc as available items the home offers. However, it does NOT list that the home has running water-but the home does have running water. It does NOT list that the home has electricity-but the home does have electricity. I was under the 'apparent false' impression that ac was a standard item such as water and electricity. However, Buckingham says "I should have KNOWN better." Well, to that I say, Buckingham should have DONE better.*I have attached call records proving our calls to Buckingham, before our arrival and after. As well as, the refund issued back to us by [redacted] after they heard the facts and the charge for $1900.00 for the second lodging we had to find just so we would have a safe place to sleep. I have also attached numerous complaints found on the internet about similar instances with Buckingham . Unfortunately, I read the reviews too late. But our attorney will be contacting each person directly to join the suit against Buckingham; at some point Buckingham has to be held responsible for their lack of full disclosure and misleading consumers.Please see the attached response I found on Yelp from [redacted], the same Property manager I spoke with to another person that posted a complaint. She mentions a heater not working on a cold day for a family checking in that afternoon would take "Highest Priority" So why is the same respect not offered ,to a family checking in on a hot day with no ac. Obviously they can't fix an ac that doesn't exist but shouldn't it be Highest Priority to "tell the family checking in that there is no ac prior to their arrival?" Especially when the welfare of a child is involved and they were very aware of a child coming.

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Description: Property Management

Address: 4000 Lake Tahoe Boulevard, Suite 28, South Lake Tahoe, California, United States, 96150

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