Would not recommend this company....

At the end of last year we received notice that LJ Hooker had sold their rent roll to Harcourt's Launceston. Whilst we were not happy, the only reason we went with them is that they promised that our PM would still continue to manage our property, and she is fantastic. Unfortunately Harcourts had taken on more than they were capable of and our PM resigned. At the time of her resignation we were promised the sun and the moon if we stayed. We were thinking of selling the property and let Harcourts know. We wanted to find a new PM who would then go on to sell the property this year.

Unfortunately for us, Harcourts sent out the lease renewal 3 months in advance and signed the tenant up without speaking to us. They said that they had emailed us, but obviously during the changeover something went wrong from their end. We were not even getting our statements emailed to us. Obviously we are extremely unhappy and are in the process of changing PM.

And to add insult to injury, there were overcharging us on statement fees and we are still waiting to be reimbursed.

 

You should write them a review on Google so anyone googling them will know their practices.

 

I plan to as soon as our file is handed over.

 

Just slugged us $49 for an end of year statement. Should never have moved over when they bought out our previous managers. Not a lot of choice down there now unfortunately and like you our previous PM has moved on.

 

SonOfTrigger, did you sign a new management agreement on the change over? If Victoria is like Queensland they absolutely cannot change any of the terms of payment without a new agreement- regardless of the company managing the property.

Cathy64, that's unfortunate that you've had such a terrible experience. It sounds like the business has been overwhelmed and is very likely understaffed by Owners who fail to understand the workload required to run an efficient and sustainable Property Management portfolio. As a result, the staff are cutting corners and unable to maintain a professional level of service.

 

Just a quick update. After sending a reminder email prior to the EOFY about reimbursing us for the fees they overcharged, they failed to reimburse us. A few more emails and it looks like it is coming through. They blamed it a a software glitch when transferring from the old property managers system to their one. I asked if this meant that all 900 landlords were being overcharged like us and told then I hoped everyone else had been reimbursed apart from us. Still waiting to see if they reply to that!

 

Sounds horrible Cathy, though a pretty common story with purchased rent rolls. I own my own agency now but in my time working for the "big names" it wasn't uncommon for them to lose 30% of a rent roll they purchased for many of the reasons you've listed but essentially doing a poor job was the overarching reason.

I'm also not surprised to hear they promised you everything under the sun if you stayed. It seems that PM's are so overworked these days at some agencies that the senior managers spend half their time making empty promises to keep people.

PM Tom is right, unless you signed a new management agreement that has the EOFY statement fee with them they can't charge you fees you weren't party to under your agreement with the previous manager. An EOFY fee around that is reasonably standard in the industry now but it's very common for owners who've had contracts from a few years back to not have them in their contract. As with most things they can be negotiated when signing a new contract too.