General Landlording & Rental Properties
Market News & Data
General Info
Real Estate Strategies

Landlording & Rental Properties
Real Estate Professionals
Financial, Tax, & Legal


Real Estate Classifieds
Reviews & Feedback
Updated over 9 years ago on . Most recent reply

Property Manager - Getting out of contract with PM?
I have my first SFR rented out for the last 3 months. My property management company was able to find a good candidate within 2 days of it being on the market and so I was very happy with this result. The tenant would have auto-draft set up with his company to pay the rent and so I thought I was on easy street.
Unfortunately, the PM never verified that auto-draft was set up so every month payment has been late to due communication issues between the company and the tenant on who was supposed to pay the rent. Tenant thought the company was going to send payment and vice versa.
Last month the rent was late 2 weeks and my PM was unable to get in contact with the company or tenant. I ended up calling the company and was able to speak with the owner and he apologized for the miscommunication and paid the next day. He mentioned that the PM had emailed him earlier that month (on the 4th) with threats of eviction to his employee and thought that was a bit excessive. [ I some how got through to him, the PM didn't assuming she made an effort to get a hold of him - I called 3 times that afternoon]
This week my PM is on medical leave (I never received a notice about this). I only found out because I called the PM to see if the auto-draft was set up. It still hasn't. I asked if there was a backup PM and was told that the bookkeeper would send the link to set up the auto draft to the tenant. I just asked for the phone number of the tenant and spoke with him and he apologized for the past couple months late rent and that he would pay rent before its due this month and will set up autodraft from here on out.
I feel like I am doing more than what I should be considering that the PM is taking 11% of my monthly rent. Based on the contract, I can't see how I could fire this person except for a section that states "Make reasonable efforts to collect all the rents and other fees due from tenants when such amounts become due". It seems that she is trigger happy on sending eviction notices (which I know are just scare tactics) but has not been able to actually work with the company or tenant to set up payment or receive payment.
It is my fault for allowing the contract to get signed with the tenant before the auto-draft payment was set up but I think also that the PM should have made sure that happened.
Do I have any ground to cancel my contract? Should I give the PM another chance? Any ideas?