Our property management company used an unlicensed individual to do drywall work in one of our units. That was the one issue, but it all began a while back. Basically the unit had popcorn ceilings and they were cracking and peeling off. We wanted them to scrape the popcorn, skim, and repaint. There was one water-damaged spot that needed the drywall to be replaced. Photos are of the ceilings AFTER the work was completed

6/12/22 We sent her the scope of work June 2022, which very specifically said:

-scrape popcorn ceilings, repair drywall, skim & paint ceilings in 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom

6/15-7/15/2022 Property manager got one quote, and promised to have another vendor to go out and get another quote. A month went by and she still didn't have another quote, so we agreed to have the first one do the job for $2,400. The vendor is a common one they use for multiple jobs. We agreed to July 28th 2022 to have the job scheduled for some time in the next two weeks.

8/26/22 Heard nothing in August, we contacted PM August 26th and she said she was following up with the vendor. She said the vendor wasn't returning her calls (even though it is a common vendor they use) and finally said they scheduled the work for September 27th, 2022.

9/16/22 I followed up to make sure everything was still set and she said she contacted the vendor and they plan to put us on the schedule for the follow week (even though I thought we were already on the schedule)

September 29th Pm emailed “Just a quick update that the vendor has schedule the ceiling repair for 10/17/22. Once he has completed the work I will let you guys know. “

We drove by the properties a few times on and after Oct 17th when vendor was supposed to start on the ceilings. We didn’t see any additional vehicles out front. We contacted PM to voice our concern. We wanted to have ceilings fixed asap so we could raise rent to match the other units which already had repaired ceilings. No response.

10/31/22-asked for an update on the ceilings. PM responded “unit Ceiling has not been repaired yet. The contractor keeps pushing it back. I have found another contractor and I talked to him about it on Friday. He is going to let me know today when he is able to go complete the job. He is a regular contractor for our office but usually works on the sale houses so I am going to have him help me out on this one to get it done sooner.” I spoke with the contractor myself and they said the PM keeps sending him to other jobs first and pushing ours back.

11/10/22 PM said she has two other vendors. One was a home builder and quoted $5,300, which was double our previous quote. She said she had another vendor that does work on other properties and he would be great.

12/13/22 PM said she has another vendor that is available to do the work for $2,200 the following day. We told her that was fine. I also said “Would you mind having him send over a scope of work/invoice beforehand just so we are all on the same page?” She said “sounds good, I will get that”

12/16/22 PM “Great news! Vendor was able to finish the ceiling job yesterday.

He has submitted an invoice to me for $2,200.00.

Please mail a check payable to our office for that amount so that I can process the payment to him.”

12/16/22 I asked for a copy of the invoice and I told her I wanted to go out and see the work before we mailed a check.

I went out to the property, it was a mess. Basically all he did was replace two parts of dry wall and spray texture over all the seams, so there are large obvious seems of more popcorn texture, NOTHING was scraped, nothing was skimmed, and the only painting was over the texture that was added. It is still cracking, and looks terrible.

12/27/22 I emailed PM “Can you please send us the scope of work that you sent to vendor? Or tell me what you asked him to do if it was via phone? I went to the unit today to check out the ceilings, and I'm not sure he understood what we were asking. Based on what I saw, there is a huge miscommunication somewhere either between us and you, or between you and him.”

12/27/22 “Yes, I will be discussing this with Broker as soon as he returns back to the office. My work order says and when I talked to Vendor on the phone it was to remove the popcorn.” She sent me the work order. It said “Scrape popcorn from ceilings in 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom” so although she didn’t include the part about skimming and painting, he still didn’t do any of the scraping.

1/3/23 Emailed PM to check if she spoke with broker

1/4/23 PM responded “I have requested to have Vendor go back out and do the job that was requested. I will have an update for you shortly. “

1/15/23 Owner payment was low. We called, PM was “clueless” as to why we were missing an entire rent payment, because she said everyone paid rent. I called accountant and they pulled out the rent payment from our account to pay the vendor for the work. I said I didn’t want him to be paid until it is fixed. She said he was already paid the day he did the work because he sent photos of the work that it was done, so she paid him, and it is the broker/PM company that we owe for the payment. I said “If he sent you photos of there still being popcorn, why did you pay him? You have already acknowledged it not being done correctly. We said to wait to pay him until the job was complete. She said she would talk to the broker about it.

2/15/23-checked with PM for update

2/22/23-email from PM “I met with Vendor in person and he is willing to go back out and scrape the ceiling and paint but he has told me that he will have to charge an additional $2,000. I showed him the photos and expressed that the owners were not happy with the work and craftmanship that was done and he expressed that he thought that it was done to a satisfactory standard.”

2/22/23-I called Broker. Explained the problem. He asked what he could do to make it right, I said “either make the vendor go back out and do the job, or have him refund us the money so we can pay someone else to go out there to complete the job” He said “The vendor has no money, so he can’t just go back out there, what else would be fair?” I said “Then you can pay us back since you paid him without the job being done” He said “so it would be fair if we paid you back for the incorrect job being done” and I said yes. He said “ok I will talk to accounting and they will cut you a check for the money we have taken from your account and we can just be done with this.” I thanked him.

2/22/23 PM emailed “Broker and I have talked about the situation and are willing to split the cost of the invoice to Vendor 50/50. The total invoice was $2,200. Split would be $1,100 each. You have already paid $1,240 from the rent collected. So Broker would owe you a check for $140. Please let me know if you agree to these terms and I can have my accounting department prepare the funds due to you.

2/22/23 I emailed back “We do not agree to those terms. When Broker and I spoke earlier today, he agreed to cut us a check for the amount that we have already paid. He asked what I thought was fair, that's what I told him, and that is what he agreed to. If he didn't plan to keep his word, he should not have agreed to it. This entire situation was in no way our fault. It was poor communication and poor workmanship between PM and Vendor. We would accept the full $2,200 from either you or Vendor. In the end, we want to get the ceilings scraped, and we do not want to pay double for the same job.

2/27/23 PM emailed back “I discussed your email with broker and we would still like to offer to split the invoice for vendor. With the funds from rent that have already been applied Broker would send you a check for $140. If you are not in agreeance with this offer the proposed splitting of the invoice Broker will need to end our contract as your property manager for all four of your units in City In doing so we will notice all the tenants in each unit with a 30 day notice as they are tenants placed by Broker and are on Broker lease documents. Once the 30 days has passed the tenants will be issued back their deposit per the lease and you as the owner or your new management company would be responsible to collect new deposits from the tenants directly. Please let me know how you would like to proceed moving forward or if you have any questions."

2/27/23-Told them we do not agree with those terms. I asked if the vendor was licensed to do drywall (specialty license required in our state) and she said she didn’t know.

3/1/23 I contacted the State of SC licensing board and they verified the vendor was not licensed to do drywall work. They transferred me to the Real Estate Licensing board and they confirmed it is a requirement for Licensed Property Managers to only use Licensed and Insured vendors to do work on owners properties.

3/8/23-I contacted vendor directly. He confirmed he is not licensed and said he didn’t need to be licensed in his county (even though the work was done in a different county) What would you do? In the end, we have wanted to raise rent in this unit to match the other units (tenants were only paying $700, and other units we are getting $950) but we didn’t feel right raising rent until the ceilings were repaired, which we voiced to the PM many times. Would you file a complaint in small claims to ask the broker to pay back the $2,200? Ask for additional lost rent? Ask the vendor to pay back the $2,200 for not scraping the ceilings? Just forget about it? It is so frustrating that we have even gone through this!