Property Management negligence leads to $100k in damages, what are my options?

[Radhika Kapur]

Our home in Seattle was being managed by this property management firm since we are currently out of the country for work. In Oct , when a lease finished, nightmare began. Keeping aside all the management issues during the time they were getting the house ready for rental again - simple things like paint and cleaning took 2 months before they put the house back on the market. They even did showings in Nov and Dec of a dirty house with no power or gas on - simply because they didn’t switch on the mains. Anyways in Dec or Jan , bathroom pipe burst because they never switched on the heating or power, or shut down water - during the coldest winter Seattle has ever seen. They discovered that the house was flooded in Jan , asked us to initiate an insurance claim - which we did.

The insurance company denied the claim citing negligence - ie. temp of the house inside and outside was the same, no form of general maintenance was done to secure the home for winter.

Now we have a bill of close to $100k and they are refusing to foot the bill. Not only are we out of rental revenue - which was paying our mortgage but hit with $100k simply cause we choose an incompetent company . I could attach the  19 page contract  here but wasn’t sure if that would be okay since it has the name of the company. 

Would appreciate any advice on how I can fight this. Any recommendations of good lawyers or agencies where I can register a complaint against them would also be welcome. Please help!

[Jay Hinrichs]

Quote from @Michael Smythe:

@Radhika Kapur First, you should hire a real estate attorney to review the management contract to confirm what the PMC was responsible to do. 

We've seen competitor contracts that put 100% of managing utilities on the owner. 

If that's the case here, the PMC would probably not be liable.

You'll also want to show the attorney any written communications with the PMC regarding the utilities and ongoing RentReady repairs, as these may also define who was responsible for what or if they took on more liability than covered in their management contract.

this is a cautionary tale for sure..  Most landlords dont know they need a vacant home rider and if there home is vacant more than ( what ever the policy says 30 60 days) policy wont cover any damages fire or anything.  I have had clients that did not know this house was vacant 4 months caught fire burnt to the ground .. first thing the adjuster does is interview the neighbors and ask when was the last time anyone was living there.. so same thing here with the freeze you need builders risk / vacant home rider  in these situations.  we have had pipe breaks this winter but were are covered with our extended policies.

this no doubt will come down to this PM's E and O insurance.  If the OP wish's to escalate this to civil court remedy. I highly doubt the department of RE in WA would do anything with this. They dont regulate insurance claims etc.