How to hold a property management company accountable for negligence?

[Farnaz Z.]

Hello BP community,

I've had a terrible experience with a PM company in CO. They approved a tenant in Dec. 2023, with 4 prior evictions (latest being in 2018), and some other misdemeanors, and the PM ended up evicting them in early July. The tenant owes 3 months of rent, unpaid utilities, and trashed my 2022 built condo and left several days before the sheriff had to break into the condo as no keys or forwarding address was left by the tenant. Considering this tenant is most probably judgement proof, who would you go after in this situation? The PM company has it on their website that "If you have been evicted from a property, we consider this a legal event, and the application will be denied."

 When I looked into the tenant's background check, I found 3 forcible detainers and 1 civil filing from 2009 through 2018. When I asked the PM about this, here are their answers to my questions:     

Question: What is the reason for her application approval despite having multiple evictions? 

Answer: As I explained on the phone. I am seeing 0 evictions on our report.

Question: When asked about her rental history, you mentioned that her history was checked for the past 2 years, and she had been living with a family member for those years. Was she paying rent to family during those years? Can you please provide us with evidence of rent payments?

Answer: She was not rewarded any points for her landlord since it was family. She did get points for having the same rental since 2019.

My conclusion from their answers: I can NOT understand how 4 evictions slipped through the cracks!!! Looks like no rental history was checked as living with family and not paying rent, does not count towards rental history.

Other than filing a lawsuit, are there any other ways I can report this company? Or should I consider a lawsuit? (My total damages are around 10K) and I do not live in Colorado...

What would you do if you were in my shoes?