Firing a Property Manager mid-Contract

[Sabrina Savinski]

Looking for advice on how to handle a negative relationship with our property management company. We have been pretty unhappy with their services for the entire time we've been working with them, but they do the bare minimum- they found a tenant, we get paid every month and a statement in the mail. The quality and demeanor of the service has been inadequate IMO but nothing to fire them over.

Recently, we received a bill for almost $1000 for repairing a window screen. This repair took place over the course of 3 weeks and we received no communication about it and were never asked to approve the expense. Our contract places a $500 limit on unauthorized expenses unless it's an emergency. When I asked to have a conversation about it, the owner of the company insisted that this was an emergency repair. She was extremely rude and actually told me that I should end the agreement- by buying out the rest of the contract (pay them 100% of their fee for the remaining 10 months on the lease).

Does anyone have an experience like this? Is it worth fighting over? Or should we just eat the fee and go separate ways? The property is in Maryland if that helps at all. Appreciate anyone's advice or sharing similar experiences and how they were resolved.