Pinnacle Real Estate Group,Inc.

My husband and I signed a lease agreement with Champion Realty, Inc. to lease a townhome located in Durham, NC. Prior to both parties signing the lease, a section was added that stated that Champion Realty would have the carpets professionally cleaned, interior walls painted, the home itself professionally cleaned, some broken blinds replaced and the stove replaced, prior to our move-in. The lease was signed by both parties, and we made our first rental payment on time. Our lease began on September 1st. When my husband arrived at the property on September 3rd, in order to unload our belongings from a moving truck, he was appalled to find that aside from the stove and blinds being repaired, NONE of the other stipulations included in the lease had been completed. The home is absolutely filthy and borderline uninhabitable. There is a thick layer of dirt and debris covering the floor downstairs, the walls have cobwebs and are not painted and only have certain spots where some "touch up" paint has been applied. The bathrooms, sinks and kitchen are filthy. The laundry room has wads of lint and dirt all over the floor and what we believe to be the prior tenant's clothes left on the floor. The carpets upstairs are stained beyond belief and everything is covered in dirt and film. Champion Realty turned the property over to us without ever having cleaned after the last tenants moved out on August 18th and in violation of the terms of our lease agreement. We have a two year old child, and I am pregnant with our second. I am wondering if Champion expects me to start scrubbing floors and cleaning the filth left behind by the last tenants? While we had always anticipated needing to do some cleaning of the home prior to move-in, we NEVER anticipated Champion's blatant disregard for the terms we all agreed upon in the lease. We are now in a dilemma as we need to unload our belongings but bringing them into the home, in its current condition, will only soil them.Product_Or_Service: home rentalDesired SettlementWe want Champion Realty to uphold the terms of its lease agreement by having the apartment cleaned as soon as possible. We are requesting that the interior walls are painted, carpets are professionally cleaned and the home is professionally cleaned immediately. We would also like to see the receipts for this work once it's completed to ensure it was actually done. There is no conceivable reason why this cannot be completed in the next day or so.Business Response Unfortunately, the outgoing Tenants remained in the property until the day before the new Tenant's lease commenced. This differed from what they were supposed to do. Therefore, we had very little time to get the property in the condition for which we typically provide to incoming Tenants. Our vendors did work over the holiday weekend to do the best they could in getting the unit ready. It was never our intention to provide a sub-standard property to a new Tenant. When the Tenant contacted us about his concerns, we IMMEDIATELY began working with them to get the deficiencies corrected, and they were all corrected within a couple days. The condition of the property was not such that they could not move in. They filed this complaint before even giving us an opportunity to have the deficiencies corrected.Consumer Response While we understand that Champion Realty does not believe they are in any way responsible, the fact of the matter is that our lease agreement stated that certain repairs and cleaning would be completed before our lease started on September 1st. The cleaning and repairs were not fully completed until today, September 18th, when the dishwasher handle was finally repaired. Champion Realty signed a binding legal agreement with us and has been in breach of contract for 18 days. Though they apparently do not see this to be a problem, as the tenants, we do. If we had neglected to pay our rent until the 18th of the month, I am sure that Champion would have taken swift and immediate legal action against us, as they would have had every right to do under our contract. I am not sure why Champion believes that its contract should apply to the tenant but not to themselves. Legally they are in the wrong, regardless of their personal opinion on the matter.We have a small child and I am pregnant with our second. We did not appreciate Champion's expectations that we would move our clean furniture and belongings into a filthy home. While they claim that the property was in "move-in condition," we believe otherwise. The bathrooms, kitchen, carpets, floors and walls were incredibly dirty, with dead bugs on the counter tops, the previous tenant's dirty clothes left on the filthy laundry room floor and the previous tenant's discarded, acrylic finger nails even scattered on the carpet. The fact that Champion believes we could have still "moved in" despite all this, makes us seriously question their judgment and commitment to their tenants & property owners. Had they even made an attempt to reach out and inform us that the previous tenants overstayed their lease and cleaning & repairs could not be completed on time, we would likely have been able to accommodate them. Instead, Champion responded to our disappointment at the property's condition with a lack of empathy and urgency (as previously stated, the repairs have finally been completed as of today, September 18th). The facts are irrefutable, Champion breached its contract. We feel this is a reason worthy of a Revdex.com complaint, and we hope this inspires them to provide better service to their tenants in the future. We are currently requesting that Champion prorate our rent for a week, seeing as the property and carpets were not cleaned and walls not painted until September 8th (even though our lease began on September 1st). We feel this is a reasonable request considering they have been in breach of contract for the majority of the month.

NOT NOTIFIED UNTIL 1.5 MONTHS LATER THAT THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE HEAT .I AM THE OWNER OF A HOUSE LOCATED IN WILLOW SPRING , NC. I TURNED OVER MANAGEMENT TO CHAMPION MANAGEMENT GROUP THAT CHANGED TO PINNACLE MANAGEMENT GROUP A FEW WEEKS AGO.I HAVE A MOVE IN DOCUMENT FROM CHAMPION DATED JANUARY 12TH 2015 AND I WAS NOT INFORMED ABOUT THIS UNTIL FEBRUARY 19TH 2105 . ALL THIS TIME THE A/C UNIT WAS RUNNING ON EMERGENCY HEAT AND PROBABLY CAUSED MORE DAMAGE .Desired SettlementI WANT ALL MY MONEY BACK FROM THIS COMPANY , Business Response The tenant we procured for Mr. [redacted] dated the paperwork on 1.12.15 but did not deliver the paperwork to our office until 1.27.15. Upon receiving the paperwork from tenant we then contacted Mr. [redacted] regarding several outstanding issues on e of which was the AC unit. Mr. [redacted] instructed us explicitly not to handle repairing this item. Here is the transcription from our PropertyWare System stating this fact: [redacted] -- [redacted] You do not have permission to touch the a/c unit and/or heating unit . 02/20/2015 9:32 AM - Comment Mr. [redacted] then proceeded to hire his own vendor who inspected and repaired the unit. The defects of the unit were a capacitor, low Freon and several leaks - Hence the only part of the system operable was the Emergency Heat. With the extremely low temperatures in NC he was fortunate that the Emergency heat was working or he would have had broken water pipes. We tried to explain this to Mr. [redacted] in an email. We also deferred other misc charges for more than 300.00 for Mr. [redacted] for over 30 days that were due immediately / within 48 hours of notification - per our agreement - just so Mr. [redacted] would not have to come out of pocket for expenses.The expenses for the repairs to the AC / Htg system were scheduled by and paid for by Mr. [redacted]. We sent Mr. [redacted] the deposit and repair escrow for his rental. There was nothing else to refund. All money associated with his account has been delivered and was in his hands six days from the cancellation of our management agreement - Including all paperwork associated with his account. Consumer Response I am glad that the heat was set to emergency heat , the fact that Champion/Pinnacle did not inform me of this as they knew on January 12th 2015 that there was a problem as they were present on January 12th 2015 with the tenants . I would not have waited until February 19th to inform me of this problem . Something as major as the heating system should have been brought to my attention instantly , Not 5 weeks later . If this is the way they pay attention to someone else's property , then I am owed a refund of funds paid for incompetence .Final Business Response As stated in my earlier reply, the tenant filled out and dated the paperwork - and also did not deliver the paperwork to us until 1.27.15 when they paid their rent at our office. We immediately contacted Mr. [redacted] regarding the heating system via email and the Owners Portal. There are no funds to refund and we provided the information to Mr. [redacted] in a timely manner. Nothing in our agreement states a time frame regarding notifying the owners of any repair issues. We usually handle all repair issues such as this in house unless they exceed the limits per our agreement to do so - then we would need Owner approval. We followed our agreement and the terms and conditions therein. Thank you.

I was not given my entire security deposit back on a house that I rented because of velcro strips on a wall in bedroom that were there when I moved in I rented a house through Champion realty from May 2013-June 2014. The security deposit was 1600$. On the first day my wife had access to the house (*/03/13), she took detailed photographs of the condition of the house. She took pictures of every room in the house. We have saved these photographs on our computer. They are digitally time stamped to */03/13. When we moved out, we were given 1,293 dollars of our security deposit back. They held money for * things. 1)They stated we didn't change the a/c filters despite us documenting otherwise. 2) They charged us for removal of a baby gate in the upstairs living area which was there when we moved in. 3)They charged us for missing blinds in the family room which were never there from day 1. 4) They charged us for a broken wand on one of the blinds in the family room which we had documented on our move in checklist. *) They charged us 18*$ for removal of large velcro strips on a wall in the bedroom and patching of paint. These strips are clearly on the pictures we took of the house when we moved in. We sent a dispute email regarding these * claims. They asked for the pictures of the relevant things. They said they made a mistake, and refunded us for 4 of the * things after seeing our pictures and our dispute. However, they still refuse to believe that we didn't place the velcro strips on the wall in the Bedroom. You can plainly see these strips on the pictures that we took (digitally dated */03/13). In fact, you can even see on the picture that we had barely even walked on the carpet in that room as it had just been shampooed. There was a mirror in the bedroom closet when we moved in and it had velcro strips on the back of it. I think that it used to be hanging from the strips on the wall. We didn't place these strips at all and I have proof that is digitally time stamped to */3/13 which clearly shows that the velcro strips were on the wall when we moved in. It is very frustrating that this company is obviously trying to nickel and dime us out of our security deposit when we were ideal tenants. I feel that they are doing this intentionally. I bet this is common practice for this business as they initially had charged us for things that we had plainly documented on our move in and move out sheets. The person in charge of the rental at Champion realty is [redacted]. His phone extension is extension *. He had been extremely condescending throughout this process and has told me he considers the matter closed. It's unfortunate that he will not even allow me to call him on the phone to explain my case to him. He had never explained to me why my pictures of some of the items they charged me for were accepted, but the item that cost the most money, he ignores the evidence. He says that the owner says that the strips weren't there so I must have put them there. I never even used this room. It remained empty the entire time I lived there. It was my wife and I in a 3 bedroom home. We never used the extra bedrooms. As I said before, maybe the owner doesn't remember velcro strips being there because a mirror had previously hung from said strips. Either way, I nor my wife placed them there and we have proof.Desired SettlementThe business owes my wife and I the remaining 185 dollars from our security deposit. I am not going to quit fighting this until they have paid me the entire amount. If I do not reach a settlement with Champion realty via this action, I will be forced to clog our legal system with another lawsuit. I am willing to fly back to NC to fight this in small claims court if I have to. I do not want to as the plane ticket will cost more than they owe me; however, It is wrong what they are doing and I can't stand for it. My conscience won't let me allow someone to steal from me. Business Response The Tenant was given a move-in condition form to complete once his lease commenced. He wrote several items on there, but nothing about the velcro on the walls. When we asked his showing agent if she saw velcro on the walls when she showed him the property, she said that she had not. We even inquired with the property owner (who occupied the property prior to the Tenant moving in) and they said that there was not velcro on the walls when they moved out. Therefore, based upon those three items, it is our belief that the Tenant installed the velcro. We therefore made the necessary repairs and charged the Tenant's security deposit for the cost of such. I told the Tenant that I preferred to keep this conversation in writing than over the phone, so that we would have backup documentation of such. NC Landlord laws were followed in deducting this amount from the Tenant's security deposit.Consumer Response They have yet to acknowledge the fact that I have pictures showing the Velcro on the wall from move in day. We took pictures of the whole house on move in day for this very reason. My pictures are digitally time and date stamped. I can't fathom a company being any more difficult to work with. My true belief is that they know that I didn't install this and they are simply ignoring the facts for a few dollars. If I get no answer and resolution regarding the pictures, we are going to court. This is theft. Plain and simple. I have pictures of the Velcro on move in day. You can even see on the pictures that the carpet had been cleaned and hadn't even been walked on. Our belongings didn't arrive for 6 days after the pictures were taken. I can prove that as well. Why would I put Velcro strips on a wall 6 days prior to moving in. We never even used that room anyway. It remained empty. Also, the manager stated that he wanted to handle this matter over email. If that is the case why won't he answer my questions. He is fraudulent. Plain and simple. Don't rent from this company ever!! I learned my lesson. As I said before. This isn't over, next step will be small claims court. A digitally time stamped picture is worth a thousand words. Consumer Response I am very happy to give an update on this situation. There is new management at Champion Realty, and the new person in charge emailed me out of the blue to let me know how sorry he was that this happened to us. He immediately asked for my address and mailed a check to us for the remaining amount of the money. He was very professional and I am extremely pleased with the way this eventually worked out. I appreciate his attention to our situation, and now that he is the new boss, I wouldn't hesitate to use Champion Realty again