period of time in transferring owner details by agent

hello,

first post, long time lurker but a recent issue has bought me out of the woodwork.

i settled on my latest IP in 1st February (close to 7 weeks back) and i retained the same managing agent as the previous investor has on the same property. However, i am still waiting for the rental payments to be paid into my account. I went in and spoke to the managing agent before settlement occured and gave them my account details and even specified for the rent payments to be paid into my account fortnightly. That was 7 weeks ago and i am still waiting!

I emailed them last week - 6 weeks after settlement, and i got no response. I called them on the phone first thing Monday morning this week and left a voice message (i deliberately called about 9.30am thinking they would be in the office). Again no response.

Today, Tuesday, I sent another email but this time to the so called Customer Relationship Mgr's email address and marked this email as "High priority". I forwarded the original email and said i left a message yesterday.

Anyway, late this afternoon (Tuesday) I have now got a reply and they said:

"Apologies that we haven’t picked up this email and responded. The delay has been with accounts finalising the settlement and the transfer of payments from the old owner to yourself"​

From that, i don't understand why it would take so long to transfer the information over - considering i went into their office and gave them all details the before the settlement occurred.

My question to others - Is a 7 week delay in receiving rental payments from a new purchase normal? This is not my first IP but is the first with this particular nationwide brand managing agent.

I do want to escalate this higher up their food chain but i want an opinion on an acceptable delay beforehand. Again, this is a nationwide management company.

As a side note - I do feel lucky that i had a buffer in the account for the mortgage payments - otherwise i would've been receiving dishnour notices on the mortgage payments.

Thanks

 

That seems ridiculous to me. Should have been immediate in this day and age of electronic transfers

 

@captain starlight *sigh* I hate to tell you this..... but if after 7 weeks of settling, you haven't heard from them and received no rent, you need to find yourself a new PM. Do you have a management agreement in place? They should have prepared one weeks ago when you gave them your details. I am a PM so I can tell you how this is meant to work. Weeks before settlement, they should have prepared and asked you to sign an agreement, then they should have plugged in their system all of your details - including the cutover date.... that's it! their system would have done the rest including disbursing to you at the end of February at the latest! I'd say call them and ask them to be reimbursed immediately, but a) it doesn't seem like comms is their strong point, and b) there is a good chance they didn't do the above and disbursed to the old owner, so now are trying to figure out the mess they are in... that's what I would say from the outside.

 

Have you signed a management agreement with the agency? They won't lift a finger until they know they are being paid.

 

x2 what Chris said, what an absolute joke! :/

 

This too, without authority to act (even if you are the newer owner), Agent would be very hesitant to touch any trust money without written authority..

 

Usually the worst kind - big brands attached to sales agencies.

This not normal at all and raising a few alarms bells as to where the money was. Are you suggesting it was in their trust account? Or had they transferred it to the previous owner? Need some clarification here. Which state/city is the property in?

 

Thanks for the various replies...

Just to clarify, yes I have signed an agency agreement with them and this was signed before settlement date and was due to come into effect on the date of settlement.

I am inclined to think this is the case.

I do intend on going into their office tomorrow - Wednesday, to get some positive responses/answers and to stress that i want the rent paid by the end of this week. it isn't a small amount of money and again, i am just glad i had set aside a buffer in that particular account. That buffer is now close to being eaten away.

In this day and age or electronic banking, computerised accounts etc, i just do not believe that it can take this long for the changes to come into play.

I'll keep you all posted.

 

This is in Canberra (ACT).

 

Hi all,

I decided to send an email to the respective agent - the reason being is I like a record of the communications and dates of said communications as I can supply this record at a later date if need be. From experience, recollections of events can change if no record is kept. Anyway, here is the email i sent to the managing agent:

--

Good morning xxxxxx,

Thank you for your response.

I do find it interesting though in that it would take so long for your organization to finalise these changes – considering the ACT Government finalized the ownership changes and sent us the notice for Stamp Duty within 14 days of settlement. It is also interesting to note that this isn’t our only investment property and we have never experienced such a delay in the transition process before with other managing agents. In this day and age of data interchange, electronic banking and account reconciliation I just find it most strange that it would take your organization so long to finalise this settlement. I also find it strange that I didn’t even receive a statement for the February period – regardless of the actual rental payment process not being finalized. Does this imply that the previous owner did receive a statement (and maybe the rental income) for that period?

In terms of rectifying this issue, can you please provide assurance that the rental payments dating from the 1st February to today – 20th March, will be deposited into our account by COB tomorrow – Thursday 21 March. Combined with the sending via email of a rental statement covering this period. Additionally, that we will also be receiving a separate deposit and separate statement at the end of March that covers from 21 March to the end of the March reporting period.


Thank you

yyyyyyyyy​

--

I'll see how that goes. If i don't get a response today then i am going higher up the foodchain.


Thanks

 

@captain starlight... I sympathise with your frustration so I want to share some insights about the PM industry - which consists - mostly - of well established, massive, reputable real estate chains like the one you are begging for answers right now. These businesses, have accumulated huge rent rolls easily - primarily from their sales department - which means that they find it very hard to keep up with the job and because it was so easy to grow... don't really care. It's not intentional or that they don't know what they are doing.... BUT Property Managment is hard work IF YOU WANT TO DO IT RIGHT and when you have a couple of relatively inxperienced 9-to-5 PMs in charge of 300-400 properties (which is very common), the level of service naturally drops... Look at you now for example... They got your listing without even lifting a finger (sounds literraly what happened in your case )!

My suggestion to you, if you are after good service, is to look for a young PM specialist business in your area. Businesses like mine (I will not mention the name because Simon will delete my post) and @Meristone in Sydney, @Lil Skater in Melbourne, @D.T. in Adelaide and @Tom Rivera in QLD (that I know off) are owned by us. What you see is what you get. The difference is that we have had to fight hard to grow our rent roll because we don't have a sales department to feed us "free properties" which means that we care for every listing - because every listing counts on our bottom line. Yes do go up the food chain, but maybe you would be better off finding yourself a good PM that will treat you with respect and will look after your interests and your property. Maybe the other guys I am mentioning can point you to someone you will be able to trust in Canberra. That's what I would do if I was in your shoes. I am sure you have better things to do than chasing them.