Property management charged me and didn't do the maintenance

[Charles D.]

Need some serious help from anyone here. My property management charged me about $7000 for maintenance. Then took my 2 months rents of $2200 apply to maintenance that I did not know about until 2 months latter that I find out why I didn't get paid from the rent of my house. Then my tenant contact me today and told me the maintenance that is supposed to be done and was not done. Beside firing the company, how I can get my money back? Thanks for all the help and suggest ion in advance.

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Theresa Harris:

@Charles D.  How can they refuse when they didn't do the work?  I don't know where you are located, but I would first ask to talk to the manager/owner/whoever is in charge.  Then find out if they have to be registered with the state board and report them.  Someone who is a PM in the US would be able to give you more specific advice. It won't let me tag them, but @Nathan G or @James Wise come to mind.

 Sounds like there is a lot missing to this story. First thing you need to do is get an understanding of the scope of work on the $7,000 worth of repairs. Next you need to get actual proof of whether or not this work was performed. Taking the tenant at their word isn't going to cut the mustard. Tenants are notorious for trying to get the Property Manager and Property Owner at odds with one another. Typical Mom vs Dad scenario.

Beyond that I am curious to know what work was paid for? Are you saying you didn't pay anything towards this $7,000 worth of work and they went ahead and spent $7,000 of their own money? That in itself is a major red flag to me that you are not working with a professional licensed Property Management Company. There is no legitimate company that's spending $7,000 of their money on your Property. 

When you are hiring a Property Management Company the very 1st thing you need to do is ensure they are a licensed Property Management Company. This is super important. For starters it's illegal in almost all 50 states to manage property 3rd party without being licensed. So obviously someone running an illegal operation is reason in itself not to work with them. Beyond that the reasons for that law are important. The general public needs a governing body to oversee this stuff to protect the public's interests. Ya see, when you are property management company millions and millions of dollars flow in & out of your hands all the time.

Each state has a Division of Real Estate who oversees broker operations & requires broker's to adhere to incredibly strict accounting procedures, audits and care of all of this money that flows in & out of their hands that is that of the client's (you) or the tenant's. Think earnest money, rents before they are disbursed to the client (you) & tenant's security deposits. It adds up quickly. Hell at any given point & time I believe there is between $1 million & $1.5 million in my trust account. That money isn't mine. It's client's (you) & tenant's money. Can't just have any Joe off the street make a website & then put um in charge of that kind of money, it would be disastrous. For example to become a licensed broker where I operate (Ohio) you need to go through government background checks, have worked in real estate as a sales agent under another broker for at least 2 years, have a college degree, have a physical store front with office hours, have done at least 40 transactions and much more that I can't think of off the top of my head right now. All of this provides the public with more protection against major theft or loss of funds.