Property Manager problems

[Kim Carr]

I apologize in advance for the length of the question.  We've held rental real estate for over 40 years.  Bought some, sold some.  We are retiring this year, so we've decided to divest ourselves of all of our rental properties.  Sold the first one fairly quickly to a flipper.  Lost money on the deal, but that is another story.  We informed the property manager (15 years) of two of the other properties of our intention to sell and we wanted the tenant removed from one, we would empty the other when the first sold.  We'll call those property #1 and property #2.  Tenant moves out of property #1 in July.  She had been there for two years.  She did over $2k worth of damage, add in another $3k to upgrade the house for sale and six weeks of waiting for the PM to get the work done and the house is finally on the market.  Most of the damage was damage that was easily visible on a drive by, if the PM had done a drive by.  Broken windows, broken exterior doors.  In theory, they did an inspection in June 2016 but none of the broken windows, crayon drawings on the walls, torn up carpet was noted.  So, I'm probably a little angry that I'm on the hook for $1500 worth of damage that the tenant did but I'm not thinking I should do anything about it.

Move on to House #2.  The tenant gave notice departing Sept 1st (this year).  Because of the issues getting house #1 on the market, we decide to head to New Mexico (3 day drive) for several reasons, one specific reason to find out what was going on in house #2.  We arrive on Sept 4th, tenant is still in house.  Tenant finally is out on Sept 8th.  We go in on the 9th (we'll discuss the key issues later).  It looks like a hoarder lived there and left everything except his furniture.  There are bags of stuff from floor to ceiling.  The bathroom has heavy mold in it like it has never been cleaned.  The carpets were torn up (we expected to have to replace them anyway), the tile is broken.  There is so much grease on the cabinets that it is actually dripping down the sides of the cabinets. The door to the bathroom is torn up (looks like by a dog) to the wood framing underneath.  There are mice droppings everywhere and insect eggs (I assume gnats) hanging from the ceiling.  When I say it is completely trashed, I really mean it.  Our current estimate to prepare this house for sale is $10k, and it is probably on the low side.  That includes a complete house steam clean at about $1k.

Obviously, the PM never entered the house in the 15 years that the tenant lived there.  Do I have any recourse against the PM?  They were certainly willing to take their 10% every month, but it looks like they didn't do anything other than facilitate repairs that the tenants called in.  So frustrated and angry.  Thanks in advance for any advice you may give me.