Arundel Properties, Inc. Property Management

unknown

Whether a potential tenant or landlord, I would avoid this company at all costs. While they may defend their stance as that they "provide service and protect the interest of the landlord", I would say that while that may be their intent, they fail to do so effectively. Their lack of responsiveness and communication in both directions between landlord/tenant is indicative of a company who simply has too many properties on their books and cannot provide quality service to all of them. We needed a rental property on short notice to align with the timeframe between quick sale of a home and building of a new one. The properties available at that time who accepted well trained, housebroken pets were of minimal selection, which is why we went with the property managed by this company. Prior to moving into one of their properties, we viewed several of their offerings--many of which were maintained at the bare-minimum level and some less than that; with smells of mildew, cracks in the walls, ceilings, floors, missing baseboards , etc. The property we chose was more tolerable than the others, had a fence for our dog, and a decent amount of storage space. When we did our walk through prior to move in, we pointed out several items, one of which was a beehive in between the two window panes. Though promised otherwise, the beehive was never removed through the duration of our 14 month lease. Many of the windows in the home also do not close fully at the top, leaving outside air and bugs to come inside, not to mention astronomical utility costs. We had no choice but to place plastic over the windows in the home to seal them. These are just a few examples of the maintenance-- but the big picture is that so long as it is not directly attributable to a specifically listed violation in the property/housing code, they will not address it. While this may save the homeowners money on the forefront, it costs them in the long run with higher maintenance costs in the end as well as the opportunity cost of lost rent by leaving properties vacant longer. In an attempt to negotiate the rent, and to promote a win-win situation for all parties, we offered an extended lease term of 15 months, rather than the 12 they originally drafted on the lease, so that our lease would end in February rather than November (because it's typically quite difficult to rent properties in November, which is why we thought offering an extended lease term would allow us some flexibility in the rent. Otherwise, it was likely the property would remain unrented until February, and they would lose more rent than they would if they had agreed to charge us less). The area in which we were building our home was very early in the development phase, so we thought we had at least this much time. Arundel Properties sent us a new lease with the extended date, and told us they were still negotiating the lowered rent amount with the owners and would get back to us. In a rush, and under a great deal of pressure while moving quickly at 6 months pregnant, we signed the lease with the understanding we would soon hear back on the lowered rent amount and come to a new agreement, but we could proceed with move-in, etc in the meantime. We never heard back. When our new home was nearing being ready for move in, we notified Arundel Properties nearly four months before we were ready to move out. They told us that it was too soon to do anything, and to notify them again 45 days before we wanted to move out, so they could put the house on the market. We followed this instruction and the home was not placed on the market for roughly 3 weeks after the transmittal of the notification/request to list the home. Because of the lost time, and because we were in a lease, we offered a "signing bonus" as a cash incentive to get new renters to take over the home. Arundel Properties refused to advertise or communicate this offer with any realtors (or clients) who viewed the property, but kept telling me that "we would work it out" regarding a way to implement the incentive to potential renters. While Arundel Properties is the company itself, they only have one realtor who lists the homes and makes decisions (Chip Burnett). Whenever we would ask legitimate questions regarding the lease, signing bonus, etc, they would defer us and say they'd need to check with Chip and get back to us. We never heard back. We called Chip ourselves, countless times, left messages, emails, etc. Did not hear back, other than from the office staff to ensure us that our rent would still be due until there were new tenants. Six to eight weeks later, we attempted to call the homeowners/landlords ourselves after repeated lack of response from Arundel Properties. We were hoping that since Arundel Properties would not communicate or negotiate on our behalf, that we would try to do so for ourselves. At that time, we were informed by the homeowners that they were never made aware of our offer to pay a signing incentive to rent the property more quickly. Shortly thereafter, we were "reprimanded" by Arundel Properties for contacting the homeowners--as if we had any other choice. Once the lease ended, we received no correspondence whatsoever for well over a month (even though, of course, they had told us they would be calling us "that week" to finalize and close out). With still no follow up or notice, we received a bill in the mail with a stack of past-due water bills that they had never bothered to share with us before (as a tenant, we could not have the water in our names, so we never received bills for water. Similarly, we never received any request from Arundel Properties to reimburse them for any type of expense). In addition to the water bills we were never made aware of in the past, there are late charges we were never made aware of for a check that was supposedly received one day late (it wasn't , but it's hard to prove because they didn't cash it right away) , and the past due rent amount for the extended contract term that we signed under false pretenses. The bills forwarded are all in addition to the rent that we already paid for 2 months after moving out-- we tried our best to pay for the vacant rental property for the first few months, in hopes the signing bonus we were offering would eventually be relayed to someone who could take over our lease. When we got to the point that we simply could not continue paying a lease payment and a mortgage payment, we tried to reason with Arundel Properties to cash out our security deposit so that we could use it to pay the rent we owed them for 1.5 months of not living there. They refused to do so, and failed to follow up with us when the office staff told us they would "talk to Chip and get back to us on what to do next". While the bills for water are legitimate, it's a bit sloppy on the funds/business management side to never acknowledge any type of water bill for the duration of tenancy, and then just forward a stack of bills 4 months after we have moved out. I suppose that this is all a long winded way to share these experiences to warn anyone else before initiating any type of contract with this company. I sure wish I had seen this beforehand. While I may have moved out of state, I left quite a network back in Maryland after living there for my entire life. Not only will I never recommend this company to anyone for whom I do not have ill wishes, I will continue to actively warn close friends and family in the housing market in Baltimore/Annapolis metro area about this company. Consider yourself a friend :)

No response from this company when I attempted to hire.

My wife and I were just married in April of 2010 and she had a condominium that she owned, but we bought a house, and with the market the way it was, we decided that it didn't make sense to try and sell the condominium. We hired Arundel Properties to pre-select tenants and they manage all the relationships with the tenants. We have been very happy with them. We pay them a monthly fee and have just been very pleased. We never intended to be landlords and didn't know what it entailed, but they made it very simple. I can recommend their organization. The person we have been dealing with is the owner and his name is Chip Burnett. He is also a RE/MAX realtor.