Yet Another Reason Why You Should Never Rent From TPM

We moved out at the beginning of June and surprisingly got our deposit check this weekend....but don't get too optimistic. Our deposit was $500.....but they took out $108 for carpet cleaning,so we got less than $400 back. Ok.....I don't know who they use to clean their carpets, but honestly....$108 for 500 square feet? I think they can find something cheaper than that. Don't they usually take out $50-$60 bucks?

This comment was posted in response the the Branbury post below. I thought I would make it an actual post in the likelihood that more people will read it now and be aware of other underhanded actions of Branbury Management.

"I'd say that's par for the course. Branbury is notorious for that type of tenant relations. Aside from being a social blackhole (I'm single), I never received my security deposit either. Granted, it's hard for me to validate my apartment cleaning abilities, but I'm famously paranoid about not passing inspections. In spite of this seemingly unreasonable concern (as well as the 4 or so hours I spent cleaning), I didn't pass inspection.

Interestingly, at the time, the lady doing the inspections was also the representative of the cleaning company (or maybe she was employed by Branbury's property management to do the cleaing, I don't know). hmmm? Regardless, I had a hard time believing her considering the obvious conflict of interest, but when I pressed her she assured me that she was, in fact, in charge of cleaing the failed inspections. I asked her how she possibly could do her inspections with any shred of detached personal interest (or integrity, as it turns out), and her reponse was, simply,"Do you really think that I don't have better things to do with my time?" Well, yes, considering it's your LIVELIHOOD!! I couldn't believe it.

Anyway, they were going to deduct the cleaing fee from my deposit refund which left me waiting for just a crummy $25, but I wanted it anyway 'cause it was mine. A handful of weeks passed and when I called to inquire as to when the checks would be sent I was told they had already been sent. hmmm, well then why hadn't I received mine? They didn't know, they told me, but they said they could issue another check for me, however, I would be responsible for the $20 cancelled check fee if I wanted them to do that! Well sure!!! Just go ahead and make the $5 check out to my favorite charity: Branbury apartments. Or better yet, send it to me in pennies! Long story short, I'm the sucker for signing the contract, I guess. Don't make the same mistake."

Ed and Elaine Welling
Windgate Apartments
Provo, Utah

I lived in an apartment during the month of September, and I needed to move out because I was contacted by Provo City Zoning, who informed me that my apartment was zoned for three people, not four, and that someone would have to move out immediately. I volunteered because I had a friend with an open space in her house.

Naively, I thought that this zoning issue would be an easy problem to solve. I reasoned that after I explained (and Provo City explained) to my landlords the situation that everyone would agree that it was an unfortunate situation (and zoning regulation) but it had to be complied with, and the only way to do that was for one person to move out. However, this did not happen. When I talked to my landlords about the situation they became very angry and would not listen to what I had to say about zoning regulations. They kept on saying over and over again that I had to stay with my contract through April, and had no response when I told them that it was a Provo City law and that someone legally had to move.

After a few phone calls between several different officials and BYU and Provo City, my landlords agreed that I could move out at the end of September. I did so and wrote them an email about getting my last month’s rent and deposit back. They responded by telling me that on top of the $650 I had paid them for September, April, and for the deposit, that I owed them $650 more dollars for items that included late fees for October’s rent, October's rent, November’s rent, late fees for November’s rent, and carpet cleaning. (They were asking for all of this rent money in spite of the fact that they asked me to move out ASAP after they got a letter from Provo City confirming that the apartment was only zoned for three and that someone needed to move out by October 31st). Thinking that $1,300 was a bit much to pay for one month in a shared bedroom apartment in Provo, Utah, I asked one of my professor’s for advice and she recommended the free mediation available at BYU. I ended up settling in mediation, but now I realize that I probably would have won my case if I went to arbitration.

My landlords had contacted their son who was a lawyer about the situation. He found out that Provo City was giving until November 30th to fix the zoning problem and suggested that they should be able to collect for October’s and November’s rent (originally, Provo City gave them until October 31st to fix the problem, but they got an extension AFTER I told them that I moved out). This made me angry because they were given a letter by Provo City telling them that someone had to move out by the end of October, which I did; then they got an extension after I told them that I had moved out and were trying to charge me for the extra time! I felt that I was dealing with really dishonest and irrational people. Also, during mediation, one of my landlords told the mediator that she felt like I had “abandoned” them (which was strange to me because I thought I was simply moving to comply with the zoning ordinance).

Bottom line: do not rent from these people!

**As a side note to this...when I was moving in one of the girls that lived there spring/summer told me that the landlords were kind of weird and she had had some problems with them cashing her rent checks months after she turned them in and with them saying that she hadn't paid her rent when she had given them her check and they had lost it...I wish I would have listenend and never moved into that place! Now I make sure to quiz people who have lived in the apartment before I move in...if they have bad things to say I am outta there!

About a year ago, I contacted Total Property Management about a room I had seen on their website. It was advertised for Fall/Winter as being $260 a month. I wanted something exactly like this because I like to go home during Spring/Summer semesters. I contacted TPM and asked them if they could fax me over a contract. However, when I got the contract it was for a year (even though I had discussed buying only Fall/Winter with them over the phone), AND the price was $265 a month instead of the advertised $260. When I called them to ask about the discrepancies, they quickly backpedaled and told me I could have the room for the advertised amount and time period. However, I must say that the whole situation gave me a very shady impression of their business. Did they think I would sign the contract without reading it first, so they could pocket some extra cash? I guess I'll never know.

Wife and I bought a contract from another couple in Branbury Apts. that extended from December 28 until August 27. We had problems from the beginning. We filled out one of those "damage report" forms and turned it in immediately, only to have the secretary in the office say, "Oh man, this sucks!" ( i.e. we're not going to do anything to resolve those issues). One of the worst problems was that the toilets regurgitated our neigbors plumbing. So for days at a time we'd have to flush five times a day just to get rid of the awful stench. We had a big gap in the front door, and subsequently an ant infestation. We tried everything, but it came down to an unsealed entrance, again nothing the management was willing to address. Our internet access was terrible: it shut down every few hours, sometimes for days at a time. Of course, we still had to pay a monthly access use for it, even though I had to go to campus anytime I needed reliable access (Blackboard quizzes, online courses, etc). I don't know what was up with the temperature, but there were times in the winter when we had to crank on the AC (no windows: just sliding doors in the bedrooms). Going to the office was a nightmare: it meant standing in line for half an hour while four people in the back laughed about something and the one girl at the window just took her sweet time.

The last straw came in the middle of July, after we had made arrangements for a new place to live, and we got a note delivered to our door that said, in effect, "Hey we know that your contract says you can stay until August 27, but we need you out by the 21. Sorry, and no refunds." So I went to the office and there were about twenty other people in line with the same letter, I didn't have time to wait for a short eternity, so I decided I wasn't going to pay any more rent (which, in reality, I shouldn't have had to do anyway, as our deposit WAS our last month's rent). Well, by the time August 15 rolled around, the management apparently decided we were no longer living there and on several occassions came into our apartment without any notice or knocking, leaving the door open when we were gone (though we had thousands of dollars of assets packed up waiting to be trucked out in the front room). After the third day of these unwanted entrances, we decided to just go to our new place early and end up paying rent for August twice. I left a note for the management telling them how bad their apartments were, and because they decided not to honor their contract, I wasn't going to clean up or "officially" check out.

You can guess where this is going. Less than a month later we got a threatening legal notice that we owed them some $300 for cleaning fees (even though it wasn't BAD, it just wasn't cleaned-- we vacummed and cleaned out the fridge and everything, just didn't dust the wall outlets or fill the nail holes in the walls). We ignored several of these letters and, last we heard, they were putting a lien on our vehicle. Fortunately, we have since sold that car and moved out of state, and haven't heard from them since.

But let me tell you, Branbury was the worst of many bad experiences I had in Provo. When I have time I'll tell you about two other nightmare management companies.
By the way, since leaving Provo I have had some great landlords.

One of my roommates moved out in March, but kept the electricity bill in her name for April (everyone in the apartment was leaving at the end of April, and it would have been a big hassel to switch the name over for just one month).

At the end of April TPM gave each tenant a check out slip that everyone in the apartment had to sign stating that they were paid in full for all utilities. No one could get the one roommate's signature because she had moved out several weeks before. We told the people at the front desk at TPM our dilemma, and they said not to worry about it and that they would take care of it (aka: take that month's bill out of each of our deposits).

At the end of May I got an angry phone call from the head of single student housing telling me that because of my action of not getting the utilities slip signed TPM was having trouble processing my deposit. When I told him that I had talked to the people at the front desk and cleared not getting the signature with them, he told me "don't listen to what the people at the front desk say, they don't know what they are talking about!"

So, FYI people...people working at the front desk of TPM no nothing about TPM even though they work for TPM.

Not Illegal, But Just Not Nice!

Since we had rented for longer than a year we were on a month to month contract. If we wanted to leave we had to tell them at the first of the month. Since we didn't know we were leaving until the 5th of June, we were roped into paying $525 for all of July, even though we left June 22. Lame, but oh well.

So, I listed our contract up on the BYU website, and in the notes wrote that we would split July rent. i got a TON of calls. Some people were interested in renting immediately, some wanted it for August. I told them that we were trying to sell it for half of July so we could get something out of it. Many of them said they liked the place and would be willing to pay half of July to secure it. Anyway, I tried calling the guy from TPM that manages married housing like 5 million times, but of course he's never there. I wanted to tell him that a lot of people were willing to pay half of July rent even though they didn't want the apartment until August.

I noticed early this week that our apartment was no longer on their website. I called Paul three times, left messages, and he never returned my phone call. Finally I got a hold of him this morning. He said that last week they were getting nervous that it wouldn't sell, so they went ahead and rented it to someone starting August 1....equals no reimbursement check for us. As a stay at home mom with a husband who has a entry level job, we could have really used that check.

**What TPM did here was not illegal. However, it still does not stop me from suggesting you rent somewhere else with people that are easy to work with, take the customer's needs into consideration, and return customer's phone calls!

My problems with Total Property Management:

1) They told me to move out in the middle of finals week (and before the end date of my contract)

2) They were extremely rude when I told them that I would like to stay until the end of my contract

3) I have gone months without as much as a whiff of seeing my deposit check

4) When I call them about it, 9 times out of 10 the line is busy or I get a machine....the 10th time, they tell me they will call me back...they do not

5) They told me my deposit was being held up because one of my roommates *Mary* called and said I had not paid her for utilities...I asked if they were sure about that because, in fact, I have cancelled checks showing I have paid all of my utilities and I know that *Mary* was having trouble getting payments from *Sarah* our other roommate

6) No, they were absolutely sure it was me...so, I called *Mary* to ask her what was going on. She told me that she had specifically told them months ago that I had paid her in full and *Sarah* had not.

7) I still have no deposit check (In addition, *Mary* told me on the phone that they had told her they would send hers out months ago, and she still has received no check)

8) There are more, but these are the things I am most upset about right now...maybe we can get into the other ones later (if you really want to know)

I started this blog out of frustration with some of the landlords in Provo, Utah. After my experience this past school year, I knew that not only did I never want to go through renting from this agency ever again, but I didn't want anyone else to have such a horrible experience either!

As I vented to friends about what I had gone through, I realized that many of them also had trouble with this SAME COMPANY. Why didn't somebody warn me? With the upcoming school year fast approaching (and me still uncommitted to where I will live in the fall), I had to wonder...why isn't there a forum where people can talk about their renting experiences? A place where they can recommend certain landlords and warn about others?

So here it is...my humble attempt to make renting in Provo/Orem a little less stressful...Enjoy.

If you would like to share an experience simply leave a comment or email me at anonymousrenter@gmail.com and I will post what you have to say.