Property Manager has resigned and locked me out of the books

[Michael Klinger]

A few days ago one of my management companies resigned with 30 days notice. However they also immediately locked me out of the "live" information on the Appfolio account  at the time of emailing me their intent to resign with no fair warning on the lockout on the system. I have access to Monthly statements but not current info or historical stuff or attached items of interest, like utility bills showing usage, clues on which units had their appliances or air conditioners replaced. Stuff like that -- that is cloudy in their reports.

The reason for their resignation is that they were making endless mistakes in basic entry on the books and they got sick of me complaining about all of it. Charges applied to wrong properties, both cross billing my two properties with them and also other customer's properties. Also terribly inaccurate categories, and not tagging costs to units, when that is just a click of a button, on and on and on. I was getting increasingly exasperated with the literally DAILY mistakes that I would report back to then and they we went into a negative feedback loop and ultimately a death spiral where the fixes to the mistakes added new mistakes. So they gave up. Which is for the best.

My only issue in pursing a new manager is that they have locked me out of my accounting with no warning. I'd like to have the opportunity to pull what I want from that system before we part ways.  I'm really irritated that they have taken this stance. What do others think?

[Joe Splitrock]

@Michael Klinger no doubt this is retaliation for what they see as a difficult customer. Sadly if they made this many mistakes on your properties, every other property has the same issues. The difference is those managers are not paying attention.

There is two ways to go to get their cooperation:

Nice guy - you bit the bullet and apologize. Tell them you understand why they terminated you and apologize for being high maintenance. Ask for their cooperation in opening up your portal for a few days. Tell them if they can do this, it will allow you all to part on good terms no hard feelings. Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't be the one apologizing, but it seems like you are dealing with a hot head and telling him he was right may feed his ego enough to help you.  

Commando - you draft a certified letter. Mail and e-mail it too them. State that you have multiple documented cases of their mistakes, which involve your records and other clients. Explain that locking you out of your information is a violation of your contract and is considered retaliatory. Request they grant you access or you will take the appropriate actions, which will include reporting them to the state licensing board and relaying your experience to other investors. 

You could try one and move on to two. Good luck.