Browse Forums Real Estate 1 Feb 11, 2008 9:52 pm We had a very bad experience the other day with the property management staff from agent hassling us with minor issues about the house we are currently renting.
I don't want to cause any trouble to this forum so no names will be mentioned here. I am quite pxxxx and I am thinking of posting the following to their head office as it's a national franchise. If they don't appologise or treat this matter properly within a week or 2, I will definitely post it on my blog with their details. Any comments or suggestions welcomed... ======================================================= Complaint about unprofessional behaviour of your property management staff XXXXXXXX in Epping branch 1. For so many years, we never have any complaint from any previous inspections of this property from all 3 different real estate agencies. 2. We did not receive any letter or information about this inspection and we would expect your staff to at least give us a courtesy call a few days before the visit like other agencies. If this is not in your standard procedure, may be you should add this to the list to avoid this kind of damages to your customer relationship happening to your customers in the future. 3. If you were told that your customer is not in Sydney and won't be available for a few weeks, you should respect that. Continuous calling, emailing and telling various trades persons that the matter is "urgent" and to contact customer on mobile directly without permission is a breach of privacy law, and very unprofessional. 4. When your staff found that the family in the house wasn't able to communicate in English, as a matter of respect and to avoid any misunderstanding or confusion, you should just apologise, leave your business card and reschedule another inspection. Entering the house in such circumstance are considered unprofessional as you are taking advantage over their communication capability. Any issues been picked up are unfair and biased as it's all based on your own interpretion without any chance of proper communication from the other party. 5. When your staff entered the house, you should respect the culture and remove your shoes if required. It's huge shock to the family that even though your staff noticed the family removed shoes before entering the house, she still entered with her shoes on. Having a wound on her leg is not an excuse, if she can't remove her shoes, she shouldn't be doing property inspection in the first place. It's considered a very rude behavious in many cultures to enter houses with shoes on. 6. Your staff's rude and unprofessional behavious gives us the feeling that, since the fees for rental property management are quite low, by making a big fuss on tiny little things would make her look like a hero to the manager and property owner. Probably even make some extra income for the company by squeezing in a few unnecessary maintenance jobs. Look, if all these issues been picked up are so important or urgent, why none of the previous inspections from all 3 agencies pick that up? 7. Your staff's rude and unprofessional behavious also makes us felt insulted, and if she thinks that we are like other tenants who have been renting for the whole life then she is making a HUGE mistake. We are renting because we sold all our houses a few years ago during the peak time. We will definitely be buying very soon and you will know which agency we would avoid. 8. We have lived in the current property for many years, always look after the house like our own one as we used to own a rental property and we know how landlord feels. And as we have been in this area for 15 years, you would be surprised how many people we would speak to about your staff's unprofessional behaviours, church, parents from our kids' school, shops, just to name a few. 9. If you staff is so keen to show her qualification by mentioning about the rental property law in every email and conversation, you are welcomed to speak to my lawyer. 10. We are formally requesting to have a different person looking after our account. If you staff wants to have any inspection, it should be properly requested, accompanied by senior management or director. Re: Rude property management staff from real estate agent 2Feb 11, 2008 10:08 pm Allan…here’s how your letter should read.
In the future, I and my family insist on notice before you send your property manager to inspect our home, this is normal procedures. My door will not be opened to your staff unless we have notice of their arrival. I insist they take their shoes off before entering our home, this is our custom, and we would appreciate this being respected. If you have any concerns about my letter, please call. I welcome all correspondence. ******************************************************* Don’t go on with the letter; hit them straight to the point! Anything more is a waist of time! No doubt someone will ring you, then you can let rip! Internal and External Building and Colour Consultant Online - Worldwide http://www.denovoconcepts.com Re: Rude property management staff from real estate agent 3Feb 11, 2008 10:23 pm Yikes, that's pretty bad.
Not sure if this is in the same in NSW, but in Victoria it's actually a breach of the Residential Tenancies Act for them to enter a property without giving notice (I believe it's a minimum of 24 hours written notice). It's been a while since I did my Sub-Agent's licence so I'm a bit rusty on that. I'd be reporting them for that - could get the incompetent little agent into all kinds of trouble They've also broken privacy laws by giving your number to tradespeople without your consent. If the matter was so urgent, a simple phone-call to you asking your permission for contractors to call you should have been done. If you had requested the work and wanted to speak to the tradies, it would be a different matter. Some agents will also tend to pick on faults that aren't tenants responsibility and will try to get tenants to fix them - as you stated trying to be the hero. I have a hole in my loungeroom ceiling near the light fitting that has been there for about 10 years (yes 10 years! ) that happened when a fuse blew and then the wiring in the lounge room went with a big kaboom and the light fitting catapulted across the room Luckily the light switch was in the hallway and I was ducking for cover The !@#$$ agent told me it was my responsibility to fix. When I asked "was the wiring here when I moved in?" and she responded yes, then I retaliated with "then what you makes you think I'm going to fix a fault with the wiring of the house?" Seeing my business card at the time and noting that I worked at a real estate agent stopped her in her tracks. I hope that you sort this out - I would definitely report them for their breaches. If she's so keen on quoting the law to you, I would ask her to go back to school as she's broken some of her own laws. Dana Dana -------------------------- Building with DFH - carpet installed! Re: Rude property management staff from real estate agent 4Feb 11, 2008 10:44 pm Allan, sorry, but your letter is NOT well written.
Needs to be far more concise, to the point, and a lot less waffling on about your properties owned etc, which is not particularly relevent. It does seem that they were wrong in entering the property without proper notice. Stick to the point, be assertive but non-threatening. There's no need to get carried away. If they don't respond adequately, post them a nice letterbomb! Ash. Re: Rude property management staff from real estate agent 6Feb 11, 2008 11:55 pm My sister-in-law was a property manager for a number of years, and she would be absolutely horrified at the behavior shown by the agent here.
When we bought our first house, it was being rented out to a young family - a couple with a baby, who were part way through building their own place. We agreed with the tenants, the vendor, and the selling agent (not the leasing agent!) that we would have a longer settlement (12 weeks) and the tenants would vacate the property on a particular friday - same day as our settlement. This allowed them enough time to have their new house completed - it was a win-win all round, as we weren't in a hurry, and the vendor saw another 6 weeks rent. Problem was, our settlement was moved forward 2 days by the vendor (he was going overseas)- to a wednesday, but this was after we'd signed a written agreement with the tenant, so we were effectively landlords for 48 hours..... The tenants were great - the place was so spotless when we initially looked at it, that I made the comment to the agent that you could pick the rentals from the owners by the condition of a house, and these guys must be really proud of their place. I was corrected by the lady, who advised me they actually were tenants, but she appreciated my in-a-way compliment, and then explained their situation. So anyway, the settlement occurred, the tenants arranged to move out on thursday, and spent friday morning cleaning. I stopped in after work at 2pm friday arvo, this is the friday before the June long weekend (which was the weekend we planned to paint the house). The tenant had cleaned it perfectly, and had rung their leasing agent, who were supposed to come out & do a final inpection, before handing over the keys to us. He'd rung at 12pm, I rung the agent again at 2pm. By 4.30 nobody had been. I rang back (I had the girl's name by now) and she said "oh, it will have to wait until tuesday, I'm leaving the office for the day now" I told her to go jump, I want the keys now, and she was told over 4 hours ago it was waiting for her to do, so get the backside in gear & do it. Her sharp retort was that the tenant would not get their bond back unless she did the final inspection before I got into the place (we were also planning to demolish the bathroom & laundry over the long weekend too). She hung up on me, so I went down to the agency (2km away) and asked for her boss. I told him in no uncertain tems that I wanted the keys to MY house NOW as promised. He told her to get over there immediately and do the inspection. She'd already changed into an outfi for a night out on the town - massively high heels, black stockings, really, really short mini skirt etc. She huffed & carried on, and I followed her back to the house. The tenant then insisted that she remove her shoes, as I had previously done each time I had been in the house. She baulked, and carried on, so he told her not only was he not going to have the spotless house messed up, but that the heel spikes would damage the polished floors. It was absolutely fantastic when she got the stockings caught on a splinter in the floorboard - it ripped a ladder right up the outside of her right leg! She did the inspection, then the b.... took off with the keys after closing the front door! It was the only set the tenants had! She was gone, and had turned off her mobile. I have no doubt it was done out of spite. I went back down to the agent the next morning, demanding the keys, and expressed my disgust at the way we were treated. They had all the keys in an envelope - over 45 seperate keys (it seemed every tenant had a new set made each time). The reception girl tipped them out on the front counter and told us that's all the keys - she wouldn't even give me the envelope to put them in! I had to fill my pockets. Then to rub salt in, they hit us with a posted bill (not even in our names - just with "to the owners of..." demanding a property management fee for those 48 hours, and a one-off payment titled "final inspection fee" I wrote a nasty letter of demand back to them, asking for 2/7ths of the existing weekly rent (which was more than their demands) and not surprisingly, I never heard back.... Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 17196 Before you rip it up, if you can in the grout lines, drill some holes and pour/inject techgrip by sika. I have used it to bond mdf to timber, but in the process it dripped… 1 4266 Not much in this responce. My suggestion is, what are you looking to build and why. This will all be impacted by the local councils planning scheme. Familiarise yourself… 6 5821 |