Diligent Property Management / Diligent Property Solutions

We have lost more than six months of commissions...a lot more.
We also sold what we could.
However, instead of giving up in life we have decided to not give up.

 

This is my final post on this thread.
The purpose was to acknowledge responsibility and apologise.

 

Acknowledging responsibility is useless unless you take responsibility which you haven't done. You've just looked after yourself.
Pay back the people that you owe money instead of swapping real estate licenses between you and your husband and pretending you didn't screw people over.
You haven't once acknowledged that people have been left out of pocket. Step up and do the right thing. Work hard and pay us back.

Go check your excel spreadsheet for my bank details.

 

No you did not. If you try to use this excuse again I think i'll explode.

Renewing a real estate license requires an audit to be submitted which you failed to do and it lapsed. This triggered a forced audit by fair trading, which when they discovered you were using MS Excel to administer your trust account they then took over administration of trust account and were receipting rents on your behalf pending investigation. IF THEY'RE RECEIVING THE RENTS WHY ON EARTH SHOULD YOU GET COMMISSION ON THEM, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THE REASON THEY'RE RECEIVING RENTS. You then tried to bypass this by having tenants pay to other accounts or to owners directly.

I know all this because I spoke to Fair Trading directly when my mutual clients first hinted at trouble and asked for my guidance.

If you're not doing your job properly in the small business world, you don't get paid. This isnt the public service anymore Dorothy. You aren't owed anything and your woe is me story is downright insulting.

Acknowledging responsibility and apologising is a great first step. Well done. Next step is to pay back all the people you ripped off, caused by your incompetence and negligence.

I have (or had) mutual clients with you who are still out of pocket thousands who keep coming to me asking what they should do, because you and your husband won't answer their phone and Fair Trading tells them there's not enough in the pot to pay them back. They'll probably need to sue for the money.

The plan now is to rename from Diligent Management to Diligent Solutions, by gearing up the other spouse with a RE license, and continue on but i deeply implore you to stop ruining our industry.

 

OK, let's take that as face value. So, your business was bankrupted....you were not! So, do you have assets, if so, you can sell & repay funds. If you do not.....then I'm sure the people that you have stolen from would accept a realistic payment plan. At least then you could say that you have done everything within your power to make things right.

See above.

Giving up on life? Seriously, I don't know where to start. We didn't give up, we stood up & fought back. We repaid all our debts, and came back better than ever. You, on the other hand appear to have just washed your hands of it all, leaving a trail of destruction behind.

You haven't acknowledged responsibility at all. You have just passed the buck. Oh, woa is me! I've lost $46k! Boo hoo! But don't worry, I'm back again wanting to be a PM.

Our fiasco was nearly 20 years ago now. We lost much more than $46k, and came back & are now financially free. You can do that too, you know, you don't have to screw others over to make it happen.

By the way.....my tag line at the end of my posts from my (then) 14 year old daughter shows the respect she had, after seeing what her family went through several years earlier & witnessing first hand that bad things aren't the end of the world.

 

It is unfortunate when people suffer as a result of a business owners incompetence, but should it be expected that personal assets are used to prop up a failed business?

If a CEO takes a company into bankruptcy, it would leave a stain on their record and one would hope they are not readily employed again with similar responsibilities, but we wouldn't normally expect them (or the shareholders, i.e. owners of the business) to make up for outstanding liabilities using personal assets.

There is clearly a lot more to this story, but if there is a legitimate claim to personal assets by those suffering from a shortfall then why not take legal action? Is the cost / time too great?

 

In this case there is a legal action in progress from OFT.

What really annoying for me is two things :
1. There is possibility of loss of fund, as the trust fund is not enough according to OFT. I also don't sense both Martin and Renee showing the willingness to recover the fund. Talk is cheap, but what is the point without concrete action

2. "The old business is done and dusted, so what I will do is wash my hands and open a new one". Are you thinking we're all live in la la land?

Hopefully lesson learned can be share here, not only for future client, but for both of you two @733. As you still owe responsibility to recoup back your customer fund. Also think about restoring your credibility and reputation, as I don't think your respond so far help you back again

 

The view seems to be as business owners they feel they were out of pocket and had to undergo lots of stress therefore it is of the belief that it is fair and reasonable for other landlords and tenants embroiled in this to accept that nothing more can be done due to what the business owners to had to endure.

Therefore they honestly believe they have no further responsibility to them, but are able carry on and continue to profit from a similar business under a new entity.

Legally the view may be OK due to be back handed ways you can get out of these things and rise to the top again like nothing happened, but morally and ethically we are worlds apart...

 

I'd also like to point out that we are not talking about a multinational with lots of employees, but a small 'mum & pop' business that has been run as a company. There are no employees, so the buck must stop at the business owners, and it is unfair that small businesses like this can hide under the veil of a company and not repay their debts.

 

Fair point. Presumably if there is wrong doing then the investigation will catch up with them. If the records were poor then perhaps the money has been transferred to the wrong investors, so some are out of pocket and some have more than what was due.

I agree that it would be the ethical thing for the business owners to do (repay the funds) if they are trading in a new entity and interested in rebuilding trust.

I don't like the idea of treating a business differently based on it's size. How big do you have to be before you are entitled to walk away from liabilities without personal responsibility?

A lot of investors here hold their assets in a trust for asset protection purposes, do you believe that protection offered by these should be disregarded, allowing access to the underlying assets if one of the linked individuals owes money to someone else?

 

While everyone else is passing their comment as may as well throw my 2 cents in

I'm not sure when this all went on but I'm sure it's taken many months to transpire....and it seems they've gone on at least one overseas cruise this year if not two. Surely if you had the funds to go on a cruise you would have paid your debts first!

Also seems they haven't learned anything about outsourcing trust accounting

Diligent Property Solutions
September 1 at 10:11am ·
Worked with End of Month Angels Trust Accounting Specialists for the first time end of this month - Martin, Angels and I worked well for our first disbursement experience together - very expensive service at $165/hour but immense peace of mind that frees up our time to focus on what we love - Property Management

 

PM Issue This post is from nearly a year ago. I think there was others before that as well.

 

All fair points Simon. And by debts, I did mean the trust funds, which are owed to some of the clients, but to oversimplify things, if money is owed, it is still a debt. I have no doubt that this was not done intentionally (unlike when my PM embezzled), but the fact that it has been done, and it appears that they want to walk away, free & clear, is just morally wrong.

Like I said earlier, I would have respect for them, if they sat down with the people that are out of pocket & worked out a sum & paid it to them, even if it meant doing a payment plan. As it stands, respect = ZERO.

 

Just been reading through that...They obviously celebrated by going on a cruise in January......and possibly another one in July!! How lovely for them. Good ole trusty Face(stalker)book

 

So is the answer that property managers should also pay a bond of X amounts week of rent to protect the landlord to a degree from their defaults as well? Isn't that the purpose of a Trust account.

What are the legalities surrounding telling tenants to pay into a different account other than the Trust account as well?

 

SOOOOOOOOOOOOO Illegal.

 

This sorta happens already. As in the Trust Account earns interest and that interest goes directly to the state government to provide a Fidelity Fund that can help with these kinda issues. The people who are effected should be asking Fair Trading whether this is the next step for them.

 

I have also wondered why the Fidelity Fund did not come into play.

When our PM pocketed the rent and bond paid in cash, we were reimbursed out of the Fidelity Fund. Maybe deliberate criminal acts are treated differently?
Marg