Grounds for suing a property management company

[Chandra Yates]

I own an investment property (3 BR, 2 BA, SFH) in GA that was rented out in 2014 by our first contracted property manager. In 2015, I received a letter and an email on the same date that the management company had sold out effective the date of the letter & the email. Thus, no notice before the actual sale that it was even taking place. The contract had been acquired by property manager #2. At this time the same tenants are still renting having signed a lease extension until June 2016 with a rent increase from $1150 to $1200.

I noticed that the new management was collecting $100 less rent than the lease stated ($1100) but keeping their 10% management fee of $1150. I called to bring this to the attention of the new property manager, however, it never changed.  

I believed that I was stuck in this contract with this new management company until the lease expired.  When looking through my paperwork, I found that I had never been given an actual signed copy of the management agreement but only a generic contract presumably for me to read before signing the actual contract. I have contacted both management companies, as the first manager has since come back to the business.  Both companies cannot "find" the contract. I fired company #2 according to my "sample" management agreement and am now on the 3rd property management company.  

New management has evicted the tenant due to non-payment of rent.  Upon entering the property, evidence of "hard living" was found to the tune of $11,500 in damage to the house.  I have contacted both previous management companies for any and all paperwork regarding the property including inspections of which there was one; when the tenants moved in in 2014.  Management company #2 had never been in the property.

Although the tenants are at fault for the way they treated the property, it is my belief that the management did not exercise diligence through regular inspection. An attorney that I have spoken with has indicated that it would be hard to prove which management company was at fault and even harder to collect any judgment. 

Has anyone dealt with a situation such as this?  If court action is not an option, what is?

[Matthew Paul]

I would think if company A sold to company B , then B company assumed all of  company A  problems