Hey @Justin Young and @Kay Kay Singh sorry for the delay in replying Justin. Update to this drama... In the summer I wanted to just detach myself from this manager quietly and move on. However, now I have no problem putting his name on blast because he's just recently proved to be a real shady character that I can't get rid of. Others need to be warned of his shady and probably sometimes illegal ways of doing things.
But first the background. The manager I fired was Patrick McDonald, business name is Netrents.net. He used to be PHM Co. I used him for a couple of years for a couple of single family’s. He was cheap and I was new to the game so cheap was what I wanted. He charged 5% which was appealing. I was uncomfortable with one of his policies which was that the manager keeps all late fees, and any other penalty fees collected from tenants. After a couple of years I realized that his MO was to screen badly, fill with low grade tenants, and if they started missing rent payments then he could get the late fees. The turnover seemed to be high, he seemed to get into a lot of arguments/disagreements with tenants. When work was needed to be done I usually heard about it when things were already halfway done, which meant I had limited involvement in the process or decision making. He redid things the way he wanted (cheaply--which he argued was in my best interest because it saved me money). The straw that broke the camels back was when I got word from him that tenants had left unexpectedly and work was being started to turn the house over. I told him to stop all work and that I wanted to upgrade the interior with higher grade finishings, and then get better tenants and stop running it like a slumlord. I gave him a list of things I expected in a screening process to get better tenants. I got MY contractor involved to do the work much to his chagrin. He chafed at the idea of me being in control of the renovation and not him. Then he was supposed to be on site for a city water appointment to turn the water on and he didn't show up, causing me a $40 missed appt fee. I then called him and chewed his *** and told him that I'd been buying other properties and wasn't using him for them because I wasn't comfortable with his management. He got defensive and angry and claimed he was firing me as client. I paid him $875.00 that he said I owed in turnover costs paid by him up front. After this we were square as far as I knew. I then went and found a new manager for all of my properties. This all finished back in June.
A few weeks ago he emailed me and said that we were unexpectedly going to be receiving a $3000 payout for an eviction judgement from 2017. He said in his email that he expected to be first paid $1265 in fees and money put up by him that he had lost. Then the remaining $1735 should be split 50/50 with me, as if he was a co-partner in owning the house. His argument was that he was named on the judgement too and he shared risk too in a negative judgment. The only reason he was named on the judgement was because his attorney listed him, and i never saw the paperwork prior to the court date. The only part he had to play was my boots on the ground by management contract, but he acted like he was as much entitled to reward from eviction as I was.
I did some researching and found that his real estate license is on probation for the same behavior in 2017. Actually twice he was investigated by the state licensure dept (IREC or PLA) and he is on probation for 5 years i believe. There are court documents from December 2017 indicating probation. I now realize that that is when he changed his company name from PHM Co to now Netrents.net. PHM Co was the name listed in all of the court documents easily found with some Googling, so he was trying to distance himself from all of the court problems and probation documents by changing the business name so he wouldn't be so negatively recognizable. He also was charged a couple of years ago with misdemeanor battery and also misdemeanor recklessness with use of a vehicle, court docs are here:
https://cases.justia.com/indiana/court-of-appeals/2014-02a05-1311-cr-557.pdf?ts=1403277034
I have now turned in a complaint to the state attorney general's office after these problems where he's trying to keep most of the money from my eviction judgment. The IREC is now investigating him again, so we'll see what happens.
