Premier Real Estate Management

I would not recommend renting from this company. They will do everything they can to eat up your security deposit, their property management is very poor and they hide behind their corporate practices. Their practices are questionable and their management team is horrible. They are not willing to work with you and have very fine print in their rental contracts. Please be very careful when dealing with this company. I personally know of several people who have been ripped off by this company, including myself. If it would be worth it for me to file a legal complaint I would, but the fee's are above what I would get out of it. I am just hoping to prevent another person from being taken advantage by this company.

On Saturday, February 8th, I filled out an application for an apartment in the Willow Park complex located at 1707 S. Nicolet Road in Appleton, WI. The complex is owned by Premier Real Estate Management and I viewed a model apartment that is used as an office. I wrote a check for a security deposit of $250. The actual apartment number was not known at the time and was not on the application but I was assured that I would be informed which apartment it was by the beginning of March. I did not receive a copy of the application because it was a Saturday and the manager [redacted], was not in. I was told that after he signed it, I could either pick up a copy right away, or wait until I moved in to take it along with the copy of my lease. I chose to wait until I moved in because I trusted that everything was going to go smoothly.

At the beginning of March, [redacted] told me that he still was not sure which apartment it would be but that there was definately one available. I called again after April 1st and he was still unsure which apartment it was. I really wanted to know because I did not want to see only a garage when I looked out of my windows. There is a small wooded are that faces some of the apartments and [redacted] alluded that one of those may come due. [redacted] also informed me that I would not be able to move in until the afternoon of May 1st. This would have put me and all of my belongings on the street for one night as I had to be out of my previous apartment by midnight on April 30th. This was also contradictory to what he told me in March which was that it was very likely that I would be able to move in before the 1st. Frutstrated, I found a different apartment that I liked. But, before I applied, I called [redacted] on April 8th to inform him that I was unhappy and had been looking elsewhere. He told me I would be out the $250. He cashed my check the next day after holding it for two months. I decided to go with the other apartment and asked for my money back. He said he would not refund me the money because there was a clause in my contract that stated that I understood that if I withdrew from the contract, that I would lose the money. I asked for the yellow carbon copy of the application but he would only give me a white paper copy of the first page of the application. This copy had an apartment number written in. I know that there was not one written in prior to him cashing my check. Pursuant to WI Stat 134.05, no landlord can accept a deposit without informing the tenant which unit they will be renting. Writing in an apartment number where there was none was suspicious to say the least and an outright lie at the most.

Review: Formerly of:

2209 East Forest St., Apt. 1

Marshfield, WI 54449

We ended our lease early, 03/31/14, (originally ending 07/31/14 per the lease agreement) due to relocation from a job change—relocating from Marshfield to Madison. We followed the lease contract to the letter, and submitted our written 60-day notice of our leaving to the Central Office. We worked closely with [redacted], our land lady at the Marshfield property. Her contact information is:

[redacted] and [redacted]

Property Managers

East Ridge Estates Luxury Apt. Homes

2501 E. Forest St., #1

Marshfield, WI 54449 [redacted] Office [redacted] Fax [redacted] Cell

We received a response to our 60-day written notice from the Central Office stating that we were still responsible for the rent through July 31stunless it was rented prior to the end of our lease—which we understood—and that we must leave the apartment clean, and they included a checklist for us which we completed and left in the unit on Friday, 03/28/14, along with the three apartment keys and one garage door opener.

[redacted] stopped by our apartment in March and stated that she had rented it beginning April 1. She said that she still had other units empty, but that the people had requested an end unit, which is what we had. They normally have no problem renting the end units as they have more windows and privacy compared to a middle unit. When we moved in, our neighbors next to us, [redacted] and [redacted], told us that we had “the best place on the property!” Needless to say, we agreed! We were very happy, of course, to hear that the unit was rented April 1st, and told [redacted] that we would be vacating the unit on Friday, the 28th, so that would give her Sat., Sun., and Mon., March 29, 30, and 31st, to do what they usually do prior to a new tenant moving in. [redacted] was very appreciative for the extra days between us moving out and the new tenants moving in.

On Sunday, March 23rd, [redacted] stopped at our apartment for a scheduled check of the smoke detectors and fire alarm. We discussed again our leaving, and I asked [redacted] that since we were leaving on a Friday and she would be at work in Wausau, if we could just leave the keys, garage door opener, and checklist on the counter for her. [redacted] said that we could.

We moved on Friday, March 28th, and left the unit very clean, along with the three keys, one garage door opener, and the completed “check-out” check list on the counter. [redacted] called us on Sunday to thank us for leaving the unit so clean! She said that they “don’t have to do a thing to it before the new tenants move in!” We were very happy to hear that as we worked hard to clean the unit and actually left it cleaner than we had received it—stripping the vinyl floors that were very dirty—especially in the kitchen—and held a strong odor, which [redacted] experienced and commented on, too, when she was putting up new blinds in our apartment on the first day of our lease. I do have pictures of the floor prior to my cleaning them and afterwards.

Last night, March 31st, at 8 p.m., we received a call from [redacted]. She said that Premier had a “promotion” and since the new tenants signed a year lease, they got one month free, and WE were responsible to pay for that free month—i.e. April. We argued that we are not responsible for their promotions, and said that they could not use OUR money to pay for THEIR promotions! We thanked [redacted] for her call, and told her that we would call the Central Office in Brookfield tomorrow, April 1st, to discuss.

Having done so this morning, and talking with [redacted], she said that “sometimes we have to run promotions to fill the units, and that’s what we did to fill yours.” I told her that wasn’t true, because we had an end unit, and the current tenants requested an end unit, so, they had no problem filling it! She then referred me to our lease, and said that it states, “If Lessee fails to give proper written notice to Lessor…” and I told her that we did not fail to give proper written notice…that 60 days was required, and that’s what we did, and we received confirmation from them. She went on to read, and again, this is following the sentence where “If Lessee fails to give proper notice,” which is not the case here “….Lessee will be held responsible for the rent on the apartment until the apartment is re-rented and begins producing revenue,…” I told [redacted] that the apartment is rented April 1, and that we cannot be held responsible to pay for their promo of one free month. The promo has nothing to do with us! I then encouraged [redacted] to read on with that same sentence, where it finishes with “….in accordance with the lease contract.” I told her that nowhere in the lease contract does it state that they can run a promo like they did and use our money to support it! She did not have an answer for that…just said, “I’m sorry…I don’t make the rules.” I asked her, “What if you ran a promo for six months free rent?? Do you think we would just pay 6 months rent to you?? That’s ridiculous!!”

In all of the contact that we had with [redacted], our land lady, prior to our leaving—her stopping over to tell us that the apartment was rented April 1st, her stopping over to check the smoke detectors and fire alarm, and her call on Sunday to thank us for leaving the apartment so clean that they don’t have to do a thing prior to the new tenants moving in—she never told us about a “promo” and that we were responsible for April rent!

Sincerely, [redacted] and [redacted]Desired Settlement: They have our security deposit of $840, which I told them I expect to receive in the mail within 14-21 days per their letter, and due to the fact that we left the apartment better than how we had found it, and even had [redacted] call us and thank us for cleaning it so well and leaving it so nice! It also states in their lease agreement that the security deposit cannot be used for rent, so we do not expect them to keep it for the April rent that we are refusing to pay, however, we are looking into filing a small claims case against them in case they do attempt to keep the security deposit and put it towards their “promo” of one month free rent for the new tenants.

Business

Response:

Dear Ms. Schultz:

I am writing in response to the complaint filed by Dennis & Darla Wessel.

Mr. & Mrs. Wessel were tenants under a written lease contract from November 1, 2013 throught July 31, 2014. In mid January 2014 we received a written notice from the [redacted] that they wanted to vacate the premises by March 1, 2014. Our office responded to the inquiry on January 20, 2014, informing the [redacted] that they were under lease contract through July 31, 2014. In late January we received another note from the [redacted] changing their move out date to March 31, 2014.

Under WI Statute 704.29 when a tenant unjustifiably moves from a premise before the lease expiration date, the Landlord has a duty to attempt to mitigate the tenant's damages. Our office did this by advertising the property for rent, along with our other available rental units in the property, as we had 5 or 6 vacancies at the property. WI Statute 704.29 (2)(b) and (4)(b) specifically grants a landlord several acts privileged in mitigation of rent or damages, including the ability to rent units for the landlord's own account first and in preference to re-renting premises of tenants who have broken their lease agreements.

During the winter month rental traffic can be slow, and since we had 5 or 6 available units to rent at our property, we decided to offer a rental concession to attract new residents to fill the available units. In fairness we believe we needed to offer this rent concessions on all of our available units, including the re-rental of lease break units, so we were acting fairly to all parties, even though WI Statute 704.29(2)(b) specifically permits us to rent units for our own account before re-renting lease break units. This is exactly what we did in this case and this is the core of our dispute with the [redacted].

The [redacted] vacated the unit in late March, and a new tenant took occupancy on April 1, 2014. The new tenant was offered a rent concession which was charged back to the [redacted], as they were under a written lease contract through July 31, 2014. It is our feeling that our actions and re-renting the [redacted] unit we have effectively mitigated their damages as required under WI Statutes, and in effect our re-renting of the premises ended up saving the [redacted] 3 additiional month's of rent totalling $2,520.00. Please note that when the new prospective applicant inquired about available units we had other units that could have been rented for our own account, but the applicant specifically requested an end unit in the building, and the [redacted] was the only available end unit in the property. We rented the unit because we felt this was the reasonable and fair thing to do, and that our actions were saving Mr. & Mrs. Wessel a significant amount of future rent. In addition, please note that our office re-rented the [redacted] apartment at no additional cost or expense to the [redacted], even though we incurred over $3,000 in advertising cost's during the months of February, March and April, 2014. In fairness shouldn't Mr. & Mrs. Wessel have some obligation to pay a portion of these advertising, marketing or re-rental costs? Clearly the answer to this question is yes, they should be held liable for a pro-rated portion of these advertising costs.

In order to resolve this dispute and protect our firms reputation with the Revdex.com I have authorized a full refund of Mr. & Mrs. [redacted] security deposit, which will be mailed to them on April 15, 2014, or 18 days after they vacated the premises. While we clearly feel our actions were within both the moral and legal guidelines of the statutes, we are making this adjustment to settle this dispute and protect our reputation with the Revdex.com. Finally, I am also making this adjustment and concession to Mr. & Mrs. Wessel because I feel our on-site representative erred by failing to communicate with Mr. & Mrs. Wessel over this situation.

In closing, I hope this response and our actions in this case will allow you to close this file and bring this matter to a close. Finally, we expect that Mr. & Mrs. Wessel will remit a check to our office within the next 14 days to pay their final water/sewer billing for the apartment in the amount of $58.88.

Sincerely,

Casey C. Duffey, CPM

Premier Real Estate Management, LLC

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 [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.

This company and the regional manager discriminate against certain tenants me being one of them. The regional manager did not like me so just about everything I asked to be done they just ignored. I lived at [redacted] and I asked for 3 years to have the trees trimmed outside my balcony because the branches were hanging over my balcony nothing was done until I moved out. For the last 2 years the heat in my apartment did not work right they either ignored my complaints or gave me bogus excuses. Then I gave my 30 days notice they claimed they never got it so they ripped me off half my security deposit, even though I told the regional manager 2 times I had given my written 30 day notice. The managers never cleaned the hallways or the laundry rooms. Some of the tenants played loud music all hours of the day and night and when I complained that was ignored also. Very disappointing place to live. Think twice before renting from this company. They don't seem to care about their tenants just making money.

We have been trying to move into one of there apartment complexes in Sturgeon Bay for over a month. they have consistently failed to give us information and have changed the price for the apartment several times. They refuse to give us a move in date and are clearly under staffed or maybe they are always this unprofessional. I will never deal with them again.