Property Managers Mismanagement

[Margaret Essien]

Hi, everyone.

My uncle is an out-of-state (Nigeria, West Africa)  investor in Toledo Ohio. He bought a 4bedroom, 2 bath single-family unit in 2016  with his retirement life savings. He contracted property a management company in Toledo to help get tenants and manage the unit.

The following happened under the supervision of the property managers

1. *Rent wasn’t increased for 6years.
2. *The tenant fell back on rent for 4 months and was eventually evicted in August 2021 (Landlord was left in the dark until after eviction)
3. *Tenant abandoned his Property and destruction to the interior is left only to the imagination.
4. * Property Managers ask for $900 for the removal of the tenant junk and when given they took $700 (as a management fee)  and returned $200 and that was it.
5. *The property Manager sent an email in response to the landlord's inquiry as to the $200 refund, he got this:   ‘Hello *******, you have been dropped as an owner, no action is occurring as we no longer manage the property'.  And that was it. Dropped just like that?, with the Tenant abandoned property still in the unit? 
6. * Property Managers breached the contract agreement executed on  September 16, 2016, with a termination clause after 12 full months which shall be automatically renewed from year to year unless a 60-day written notice is received 60 days prior to the expiration date. The landlord wasn't given a 60-day notice of any sort.

I have been assigned power of attorney as the landlord. I live in New Jersey and I have investments of my own in Newark. 

What do I do?  Any suggestions?

[Darius Ogloza]

Sadly, it seems to me that, regardless of how terrible this experience must have been, there are not enough damages here to pursue a claim in Ohio courts whether you do so from New Jersey or Lagos!  The absence of a rent increase for 6 years, frankly, is something that your relative should have observed based on the cash flow he had been receiving from the property over that lengthy period of time.  The lack of notice is very frustrating but it would be awfully hard to tie money damages to those actions.  If your uncle retains a new manager who charges more than the initial manager's contract price for various services, he could recover the difference as well as his $700.  It does not sound like these guys were charging above or below market so I would expect the difference to be small.  In short, I think YELP is your best friend here.