COLONIAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT

Forced to leave the area because of military orders I decided to rent my house rather than sell it (in 1992). I selected this company because of their sales pitch to watch over the house "as if it were their own". Things went well for about the first 10 years, then took a huge turn for the worse. By then I had been lulled into complacency. The company would receive money from me for repairs/maintenance, then contract it out to shoddy workmen and not inspect the work before they paid out the money. This led to such things as exterior paint jobs with huge patches not painted, skylight repairs that merely painted over interior water damage, and minor interior repairs that looked worse than even a child would do. They assured me they were routinely inspecting the property after move outs, but they neglected to note such items as THREE satellite dishes installed (illegally) on the roof, cables running along the outside of the house and entering the house through holes drilled through the brick, rodent infestation in the A/C closet, rotted word on the exterior, and EVERY WINDOW in the house with broken vacuum seals causing constant fogging. They also failed to enforce tenant lawn care standards. When I went to close out the account after the last tenants moved out, the entire staff was rude. They failed to return phone calls, canceled appointments at the time of the appointment, and refused to allow me to speak with the owner. When I brought my complaints to the maintenance/quality assurance manager, she became defensive and surly. She was so incompetent she did not even understand the concept of broken window seals, bringing up old photos on her computer and demanding that I point out any "broken windows". When I asked her to accompany me to the property (about 5 minutes from the office) she sniffed that she was far too busy to visit the property. When I asked why none of her inspectors had noticed three satellite dishes mounted on the roof, she said I must have authorized the installation -- yet she found no such authorization in the file. When I explained to the office manager that the company's failure to note problems would cost me a great deal of money in lost sales market time and increased costs due to letting small problems become major, she was hostile and dismissive. On more than one occasion when they would inform me of repairs that needed to be made, they would give one quote for the entire job (no professional estimate with details) -- when I asked for additional estimates and for details, they would suddenly quote me a much lower price but not provide actual different estimates. I am done with these rip-off artists now, but I'm embarrassed I stuck with them as long as I did and did not recognize what they were doing. In all, they earned about 30,000 in commissions from me over the years, plus approximately 4,000-8,000 interest from tenant security deposits and my required maintenance fund. An expensive lesson to me.