WESTCOM PROPERTY SVC

NOTE: We pay $352 per month for the management services I have been on the Home Owner's Association Board since 2008, actively working on getting the building re-roofed, getting a Funding Study performed, and working on a unit that was delinquent on HOA dues to the point that we filed a lien foreclosure. This is the first property management company I've worked with so it's hard for me to say that they're better or worse than others. So far they don't appear to have mis-managed funds, but they allowed the building's General Fund to drop to critical levels (about 27% of the amount recommended by the funding survey) . They do not handle any repair and maintenance services, and the vendors they have given us as references are not the best you can find. We're doing better finding our own vendors in terms of quality of work performed, but that's a lot of additional effort on the homeowners who are willing to take responsibility for building needs. The lien filing they initiated has turned out to be a nightmare and the company they contracted with (SBS Lien Services) to handle the foreclosure paperwork has provided us with information that appears to be actively illegal based on other public domain information. We finally broke down and hired an attorney to advise us properly, an expense we can ill afford. To summarize, we are now the deed holders for the property, which makes us liable for the property taxes and repairs... but we are the secondary lien holder to a bank that issued a mortgage for far more than this property was ever worth and we cannot locate an appropriate bank contact to negotiate some kind of settlement or mutually agreeable arrangement. The situation is a huge mess that both Westcom and SBS could have steered us through if they were more competent. Responsiveness is generally good when we need something that requires immediate attention. Other stuff, like arranging regular board elections and meeting with the property owners on a periodic basis, are clearly much lower priorities to our Westcom contact than they are to us. Working with them has been very much a mixed bag, with the property owners having to intuit what exactly we can expect from Westcom in terms of services, and how to make things happen. Given that none of the property owners have much real experience with property management, running a condominium HOA, or the like... Westcom has not been terribly helpful. On the other hand, they're not actively bad. I'd give them a C+