VIC Extremely poor experience with a Melbourne based Property Management Agency

Discussion in 'Property Management' started by jchw38, 25th Sep, 2019.

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  1. jchw38

    jchw38 Active Member

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    Review for: INVESTORS CHOICE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

    Prospective landlords – Beware of this property management agency

    I was a landlord customer with them for over 6 months - Worst Experience Ever! I have used 5-6 different agencies in the past 12 years as an investor in Melbourne, for comparison sake.

    They made great promises in the beginning, and will offer you a few months free rent to lure your business. But once I signed up, it all went downhill pretty fast right from the beginning.
    I can tell you even with the few months of “free management”, the resulting never-ending disasters and problems of having your investment properties/tenants poorly mis-managed is not worth the trouble. I felt my assigned property manager as well as the owner were both very unprofessional and unethical from start to finish.
    1. The property manager (Grace) promised fancy professionally edited and interior styled photos for leasing advertisement delivered within 1-2 days after photography – The reality is that after 1 week of waiting, I had no edited photos to show and no communication from them either. I had to chase up and find out what's going on whilst my vacant property wasn’t even advertised on the internet. After the extended delay, I still ended up with mostly unedited/unfurnished photos in the advertising despite promises otherwise.
    2. I found mistakes on their Realestate.com advertising blurb and after little interest 2 weeks later, I also asked to lower the advertised rent to attract more prospective viewers – Again several days of waiting whilst property remained vacant, no reply or response to my emails and calls. Eventually after more frustrating repeated emails, texts and calls – finally they followed my instructions a week later. This delay could have cost me potentially more interested tenants viewing the ad/property if the rent had been lowered from $750 to $725 a week, which is the next search band down.
    3. Eventually we finally had a tenant interested, I immediately instructed the property manager to offer a longer leasing term for a longer-term security of tenancy – For unknown reasons, the property manager decided to ignore my instructions for days, and got the tenants to sign an agreement which I did not approve of but tried to pressure me to sign. We had to waste several more days going back and forth before the property manager finally gave the new tenants the correct tenancy agreement to sign. Lots of frustration and time wasted yet again. All I had asked was for the property manager to put the question to them, and yet she refused for days to offer the extended term lease. Even though we eventually found out the new tenants were more than happy to sign a long lease.
    4. I would also receive rent late for both of my properties managed through this agency. I would have to chase up with the property manager with multiple emails and calls each month about why the rent was late yet again. Eventually I discovered that my property manager didn’t even have any idea the rent hadn’t been paid on time. Basically they don't have a system to even monitor whether the tenants have paid their rent or not. each month. Just before I switched my properties away from them, it got so bad that after 2 weeks of no rent disbursement, I finally emailed/texted/called my property manager. There was as usual no urgency to resolve these issues. Then I would receive half a month's rent and I would again have to chase up what happened with the other half of the rent that was due.
    5. After I switched to a new property management agency, all my tenants were promptly put on direct debit and never again did I have late rent again. In fact all the tenants were happy and had no issues going on direct debit. Just goes to show that having a good property manager with a good system makes all the difference.
    6. Lastly, when you finally try to switch to another agency – The owner of the company (Joe) took over matters and deliberately withheld rental payments from me for more than 3 weeks and refused to hand over the tenancy files to my new property manager. They will demand that you pay them a $199 “File preparation fee” per property before they release your own rental funds to you. I checked that this fee was not listed in the Landlord Authority contract. I also checked with a property lawyer and other landlords on various property discussion forums (including this one) – They all agreed this was most unusual and may even be unlawful to charge such a fee not contained in the contract which I had signed with them. Even when I presented this information to the owner of the agency that this fee he was demanding to be paid was unlawful and that I would follow it up through VCAT - He would either ignore my emails/calls or refused to answer any of my questions and sent me an email stating he would not release the rental funds nor any tenancy files to the new property manager unless all fees he was demanding be paid first.
    For anyone who wants proof of my nightmare ordeal with them, please feel free to contact me and I am happy to provide proof of the contract I signed plus the illegal fees I was charged on their ledger statements.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 26th Sep, 2019
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  2. Dan Wood

    Dan Wood Well-Known Member

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    Interesting read.

    I've yet to have a bad property manager (fingers crossed), for my IP.

    I've had plenty being a renter, it just boggles my mind how they can be so complacent when they're running a business...

    Your best interest wasn't the priority obviously and that's the worst kind of company you want to deal with. It's unfortunate the way they dealt with your issues and requirements.

    All I can say is, I hope they learn from it.
    But I doubt they will.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 26th Sep, 2019
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  3. TMNT

    TMNT Well-Known Member

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    Ive had plenty, and dealing with them is a royal pain in the butt

    I just wish there was an ombudsman for them, it would have saved me so much hassle

    there are so many questions you can ask to "vet" them, and no PM is going say yes to "are you going to forget to do a Ingoing inspection"

    word of mouth is number one for me
     
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  4. jchw38

    jchw38 Active Member

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    I agree, there should be an ombudsman with powers to regulate real estate agencies - Like there is for most other professions and industries. For the protection of all consumers - Landlords and tenants are like. That would make real estate agents think twice about whether they feel like complying with the law or not.
     
  5. Michael Mitchell

    Michael Mitchell Well-Known Member

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    Well there is, in Qld for example, the two main pieces of legislation that govern real estate activities are the Property Occupations Act and the Agents Financial Administration Act, then there's also the Residential Tenancy and Rooming Accommodation Act which govern residential tenancies - actions by Lessors/Agents & Tenants, and there are penalty provisions for various breaches of these Acts. The Residential Tenancy Authority (Government body) as well as the Office of Fair Trading (Government body) can bring criminal charges for various breaches of the Acts also. In short, managing other peoples' money (trust monies) is heavily regulated. Managing and representing real property to prospective buyers, sellers, tenants, is also heavily regulated. General incompetence and poor performance doesn't necessarily mean they're breaching the legislation, which is why it's important to have good people working for you.
     
    Last edited: 27th Sep, 2019
  6. Bradley Peet

    Bradley Peet Well-Known Member

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    Interesting read.

    What made you choose them to manage your asset?

    Their Google reviews aren't too crash hot.
     
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  7. jchw38

    jchw38 Active Member

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    An unfortunate recommendation from a building renovation project manager. The project manager actually did a pretty good job overall for me in managing a 6 month renovation project from planning to completion. When I had a bit of trouble leasing out the property that was renovated , she referred me to consider switching agencies. Unfortunately her referral of this agency hasn't worked out very well at all.
     
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  8. MiffyFanBubbles

    MiffyFanBubbles Active Member

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    Apologies for reviving an old post but this was the only mention of this property management group I could find on the forum.
    Is this review with regards to the Richmond or Laverton office? I was considering their Laverton office since the reviews seemed to indicate their Laverton office was fine.
     
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  9. Ted Varrick

    Ted Varrick Well-Known Member

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    Why dont you contact the OP, and then re-read the first post, just in case you need a heads up?

    Assuming both are out of order, sure, go for it.

    And don't forget to let us all know how your experience works out...
     
  10. jchw38

    jchw38 Active Member

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    The incompetent property manager and poor system was run from the Richmond office.
    But don't forget it is the owner who makes the rules - the last part with the $199 "file handover fee' PER PROPERTY that they will get you on if you are ever unfortunate enough to be with them and then want to switch away from them. Not to mention that this won't be in the contract you signed, but nevertheless they won't care about the law, you will still have to pay them if you want your rent disbursed to you....
     
  11. Jimmyay

    Jimmyay Well-Known Member

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    Please report to Consumer Affairs Victoria if you believe there are unfair or invalid charges or deductions, or if rent is being withheld from you, contrary to any management agreement you made with an agency. CAV investigate and enforce breaches, and are the only way companies who are not doing the right thing face real consequences if they are breaching the Estate Agent Regulations.
     
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