Spartan Invest Hidden Fees

[Joseph Lin]

Hi,

I would like to talk to other people who are investors with Spartan Invest in Alabama to see if they are seeing similar issues.

A little background. I purchased an investment home with them around 12/2018. It took them a while but was finally able to get tenants in around 3/2019 on two year lease. During that three months, I was not charged anything and because it took 3 months to put in tenants, they did not take first months rent as placement fee. Around 2/2020 the tenant broke the lease due to work. Because the tenant broke the lease and owned a pet, I was expecting to receive 2 months rent. Here is where a few things start feeling sketchy to me.

1. They still considered the early-termination fee and pet fee as rent so I was charged the usual management fee.

2. They charged me a lot of fees on move-out, one of which was a double charge for lock change that I had to ask multiple times to remove before they finally did.

3. Even after these move out fees, I'm still getting charged for things such as utility ($139.50), lawn mowing ($45.00), and house cleaning ($50.00). This does not seem right as I did not have to pay for these during the initial three months my property stood empty.

I feel like this is an attempt on their end to recoup losses caused by COVID. Anyone else having these issues with them?

[James Wise]

Originally posted by @Joseph Lin:

@Jay Hinrichs - I've been billed several times during the date the tenant moved out. One bill for $525 was labeled as MOVEOUT, which I assumed was all the repairs/cleaning required to get the place ready for the next tenant. 

@James Wise - My issue isn't with the fee itself. It's a question of discrepancy. Why would these fees have not shown up when the property was initially vacant but is showing up now? In terms of cleaning, as I mentioned to Jay I was already billed $525 for moveout fee which I thought covered cleaning. Also, they take the first months rent once a tenant has been placed (if can be placed within first month vacancy), which I assumed covered all the fees to get the place rented (advertising, lawn mowing, etc).

My question was really directed towards other customers to see if they were seeing similar experiences. I have no issues paying for fees but when the fees don't match what I've seen historically, then there's a problem.

A leasing fee is going to cover 1 thing....Leasing your property. That's industry standard. Every additional service will of course need to be paid for as well such as cleaning, lawn mowing, fixing repairs etc....Again industry standard.

As for you not being billed for grass when you 1st bought the property, you're right man. Spartan Invest should go back and bill you for the grass cutting you didn't pay for. Good catch.