"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

My mother, 79, is a property owner at HOLIDAY SPRINGS, Margate, Florida 33063, where BENCHMARK PROPERTY MANAGEMENT serves as the property manager [unfortunately] for their community.

There have been numerous incidents, in my opinion and direct contact with Benchmark, of irrefutable fraudulent practices committed by this corrupted organization.

Benchmark silently, through intentional concealment, unidentified "fees" in addition to their monthly maintenance dues. However, they conceal this information by failing to furnish homeowners with "unpaid fees" that are in addition to the fixed maintenance dues (for which are paid monthly).

They then wait several months to issue a mile-long invoice of “incurred arrears” "commanding" over $500.00 of fees of which no one would or could have ever known about due to their failure to notify homeowners of any of this. That is, of course, until the fees become unaffordable to most retirees, giving them an advantage to begin the legal process to steal the homes (step one: lien).

They include their threatening language, stating their intention to "file a lawsuit" if not paid, as well as place a lien on your home.

I have come to believe that they are involved in some strategic method to achieve one of the following (or perhaps some other unethical scheme);

a) Steal homes from the elderly through legal loopholes that they invent throughout the course of their involvement with communities …”if not paid by…” (No coincidence that the market values are favorable for acquiring property?); or

b) Use it as a creative way to collect additional funds from victimized homeowners.

They also are sure to include a direct threat that their "legal fees" will exceed $2,500.00.

Whenever attempting to resolve [any] issue with this company through a request for escalation to a higher level of management internal to their organization (after no response and/or clarification from the front lines), they all respond by stating, "that is confidential information...”

I conducted my own background check just to "locate" BENCHMARK management [concealed] contacts after the front-liners at Benchmark repeatedly refused to furnish me with the contacts and managerial hierarchy charts within their corporate structure. To clarify, if you contact Benchmark directly, and request information on upper management and contact information, they tell you that the information is "confidential".

I finally uncovered this information on BENCHMARK PRESIDENT and OWNER, Mr. William Sugarman, Benchmark Property Management, Inc., and his designated management team members (all of whom share his last name).

In my [voluminous] attempts to resolve various issues similar to the latest issue above (there are constant issues ongoing with Benchmark and their tactics), they would go unanswered initially, and then followed by letters from their attorneys substantiating their initial threats of legal fees to be added onto arrears. We end up "paying" anyway in a no-win catch-22 situation as they cornered us into “check-mate”.

If anyone is a homeowner that also has BENCHMARK as their property management company, and you have had a poor experience with Benchmark, and you would like them to be held accountable to the Florida Statutory governing entities of which I intend on researching and pursuing, please contact me at kathyholmessd@gmail.com. In your email, please feel free to expand upon your concerns, including whatever reprehensible action(s) (monetary or non), they Benchmark has engaged in against you.

I will then plead your cause in a collective report up through the state government division(s) who handle matters pertaining to potentially unlawful and egregious immoral and reprehensible acts of trickery as in my example above and of which I suspect to be the case.

I have made a decision to devote the time needed to finally seek justice and accountability of Benchmark and the Sugarman family (yes - all of the Sugarman's are involved in the suspected schemes). My opinion as to their unethical and irresponsible fiduciary, along with my opinion that they are involved in elderly abusive extortion and threatening homeowners by using unfair tactics through concealment of “alleged fees” that are not part of the standard set amount of monthly maintenance fees.