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Haverford Castle, Richard Toth, Gabriella Toth Predatory Rental Practices and Negligence Haverford Pennsylvania
We are among a long line of former and current renters to become ensnared in the web of bad faith, negligence, harassment, and retaliation perpetrated by Richard and Gabriella Toth, owners/managers of an apartment building called Haverford Castle in Lower Merion Township, PA. We no longer live in the building and are thankful every day our nightmare is over. But for new renters it's only just begun and there's really no formal way to warn them. That's why I'm filing this RipOff Report -- to advise whoever is thinking about renting there to run away away very fast.
The stone 1920s building comprises a number of spacious, bi-level 3 and 4 bedroom apartments that are unlike anything else available in the area. Hardwood floors, crown moulding, fireplace, 3 bathrooms, tile balcony, huge walk-in closets, butler's pantry, lots of original detail. The units are highly desirable, and therein lies the trap. The rents are $1900 - $2,200/month (utilities not included). You can't be poor to live there, and yet the Toths behave like slumlords and treat their tenants like squatters. They are deliberate in their willful ignorance of landlord/tenant laws and their responsibilities as landlords.
It is a pattern. The Toths repeatedly fail to deliver a completed apartment on the lease start date, and when tenants get angry and demand redress, they get an eviction letter followed by a summons to appear in court for a recovery of real property hearing. The constable for district court finds herself in the building at least once a month serving a summons for an eviction hearing to a tenant who is withholding rent because repairs have not been addressed and/or has tried to hold the Toths accountable for persistent unacceptable conditions.
Life becomes a living hell pretty quickly for new tenants who discover that Mr. and Mrs. Toth have misrepresented their property and themselves. The Toths had our $4,000 security deposit for three months before we moved in and the unit was empty because they had evicted the previous tenant, yet they still delivered a dirty, woefully incomplete and unsafe unit with unattached kitchen cupboards and crookedly cut countertops; an improperly secured vinyl kitchen floor that was ripped in numerous places and fell short of the wall and the appliances; holes in drywall that were not patched and painted; holes in every interior door from a previous doorknob; unpainted closets; filthy oven and bathtubs, and more. Over a period of three months when we checked in with the Toths about their progress in rehabbing the apartment for us (we had already signed the lease), we were repeatedly assured by Mrs. Toth that the unit would be "beautiful" by our move-in date and that if they could not finish the work themselves by then, they would hire professionals to complete it. I have several text messages from Mrs. Toth to this effect.
We were livid that they had lied to us so blatantly and shamelessly. We had nowhere else to go -- we'd vacated our old place and it had already been rented. We had executed careful planning around this move so that it would go as smoothly as possible, arranging our lives and individual personal and work schedules to align with the move-in date we'd agreed on with the Toths. Outside of unpacking, we'd expected to resume normal daily life the next day. When we demanded that Mr. Toth complete the work immediately, Mrs. Toth assured us they’d have it all done in five days, three of which Mr. Toth didn’t show up to work and ignored our phone messages asking where he was. We couldn’t unpack, couldn’t use the kitchen, had to get take-out food or eat out night after night. The washer and dryer hadn’t been delivered either, so we couldn’t do wash for almost two weeks. We were stressed to the max living under these conditions expecting day after day that Mr. Toth would make good, only to find him intruding on our privacy on an open-ended basis on his own "schedule" and making no discernible progress on any task. His "work" was actually making matters worse and he left his tools scattered all over our living space where we'd trip over them.
It was maddening. We just wanted a complete apartment as promised, our life back, and Mr. Toth out of our space. After more than 10 days of this (at least five of those days having to take off work to deal with this), we told him to take his tools and get out and we would finish the work ourselves. We did what we could and paid professionals to install a kitchen floor (which Mr. Toth had tried and failed miserably to do twice). As that was happening, the Toths delivered an eviction letter to us stating WE were in violation of the lease because we didn't get their permission to alter their property! We were forced to engage an attorney and tie up weeks and months (and money, of course) responding to the eviction hearing notices and preparing a legal defense against their insanity. At the same time, we were also on the receiving end of their verbal abuse as we came in and out of the building and harassment by text message and email. In one text from Mrs. Toth, we were accused of putting deer urine in the hallway. I am not kidding.
We went to court with pictures of the dreadful kitchen floor and the other conditions and won. The judge ruled that the Toths had failed to deliver the apartment on the lease start date, which was in violation of their lease -- DUH. Mr. Toth's reason, he told the judge, was that he was too busy clearing snow from the parking lot from all the snowstorms to have our apartment ready on the lease start date. He also claimed that WE had agreed in advance to let him finish the work after we moved in! The judge told Mr. Toth's lawyer to please advise Mr. Toth not to attempt to install vinyl flooring ever again. We were not held liable for the rent we withheld because we paid for all the work to make the place habitable. Mr. Toth agreed in writing to return our security deposit within 60 days in accordance with the state landlord-tenant law. We found another place and moved, leaving the unit in far better condition than we found it. No surprise, Mr. Toth ignored the agreement to return our security deposit, so again we had to get the lawyer involved and he paid up -- but not before having the nerve to ask us if we would be willing to take LESS than what we were entitled to!
We sought out former tenants of Haverford Castle and they've all corroborated our experiences. One tenant that I know has been harassed and physically menaced by Mr. Toth and has had to involve the police. It's all on record. Some tenants have been awarded monetary judgments against the Toths and the Toths' response is simply to ignore the order, leaving those tenants to decide whether they want to initiate the lengthy legal process for a sheriff sale to get their money from the Toths or just cut their losses. Many previous tenants who were victimized by the Toths did not have the wherewithal to seek legal redress, opting instead not to fight eviction because it would legally free them from the toxic landlords.
The bottom line is that these people are predatory, dishonest, and scary and they keep getting away with it. Local township officials have been made aware of the Toths' practices by us and a current tenant who is in the process of filing suit against them. But the township can't go out and warn every potential tenant who sees the “for rent” sign outside or makes an inquiry after seeing a Criagslist post for 3-4 bedroom apartments. They can't post a sign on the lawn that says "Don't Rent Here." That the Toths have no business being landlords is the understatement of the century. If this report helps at least one person, it's worth it.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
TruthInBusiness
Rosemont,Pennsylvania,
USA
Legally Evicted Tenants by Violations of Leases
#3REBUTTAL Owner of company
Mon, February 27, 2017
What you read is complaints by two legally evicted tenants who violated their leases. The first is Raj Rani, wife of Yin Rani, who is psycologically disturbed, a paranoid personality disorder. We bent over backwards to please this tenant, but he wanted more and more and more. Raj Rani would call be to pick up his newsparer for him! He asked that I, as landlord, watch of his mother who has schitzophenia for 3 weeks while he would be away. He filed a 200 page consumer complaint against us with the State of Pennsylvania because a floor board creaked in a building that is 97 years old! I put one nail in that board and it did not creak then. He reported me to the police that I had keyed his new black Mercedes repeatedly, but we have photos of his car that it is not keyed! He had his 5 year old son drive a truck into the stone wall of the building. This man is just mentally ill. He is afraid of his enviroment. He fears little black spots in corners. Being physically inept, we put up our own $1200 cutains for him, but then complains that it is not quite straight and will we hem it for him. That is not in the lease. In the end, he repeatedly clogged up a toilet, which caused a water flood on the dining room ceiling. When Gans Plumbing certified that nothing was wrong with the toilet, he refused to pay the plumbing bill. This lead to a $24,000 law suit over a clogged toilet. The man is mad. This unit had an $18,000 renovation before he moved in, but nothing was acceptable to Raj Rani.
The second man was Andrew Penney, also mentally ill, a psychopathic personality disorder. Even his son was quite afraid of him. See the DSM IV description of a psychopath. This apartment had a $22,000 renovation before he moved in, including a new kitchen. I put down new linoleum floors into the kitchen, breakfast area, and laundry rooms. Because I had to move the stove, there was a one centimeter tear in the linoleum on the left and right sides of the stove. It was an imperfection, but entirely livable. There were a few tasks undone at the time of move in. I had to work another 7 days to fix up all details. But then, Penney illegally claimed to Empire Floors that he owned the apartment. He got financing illegally to have all my new floors torn out, and install new floors, all of which he charged to me! The lease states that one may not alter the physical apartment without written permission of the owner. He did. Then he decided tho not pay rent for 5 months. Inexplicably, Judge Valintine at Discrict Court in Ardmore allowed the lease violations and we had to pay for the new floors we did not order. For 7 days I worked to fix up details, and his wife, in trembling fear of her husband, did not say a word to me. She was under orders from this psychopath.
The "long line" of evicted tenants includes a convicted drug dealer who was not on the lease. There was also, a bright young nurse, who decided to move out with out notice, and did not complete the term of the lease which is a legal contract.
Haverford Castle, LLC is a great, old company with nine units built inthe 1920s. We have the largest apartments on the Main Line, averageing 2300 square feet. They have all hardwood floors, except kitchens, a fireplace, two levels, a large stone porch, and are highly maintained. I myself have worked on this building 48 years since 1969. Every unit is fully reconditioned before a move in. I know every square centimeter of this property. It is a beautiful, old building. We have many letters from tentants who love the place, current and past. 95% of the time we get good tenants. But in the case of Raj Rani we got a paranoid person who was not rational and of Andrew Penney we got a psychopathic personality. My wife and I work hard to put in new kitchens, new bathrooms, new tile floors every day. No problem is ever ignored. We pride ourslves on the personal attention we pay to each resident. What these guys say on this RipOFF is just slander.
In truth, Rich Toth, Owner, Haverford Castle, LLC
Update to Haverford Castle
#3Author of original report
Fri, May 08, 2015
We are among a long line of former and current tenants to become ensnared in the web of bad faith, negligence, harassment, and retaliation perpetrated by Richard and Gabriella Toth, owners/managers of an apartment building called Haverford Castle in Lower Merion Township, PA. We no longer live in the building and are thankful every day our nightmare is over. But for new residents it's only just begun and there's no official way to warn them. That's why I'm filing this RipOff Report -- to advise whoever is thinking about renting there to run away as fast as they can and don't look back.
Haverford Castle is a stone 1920s building comprising a number of spacious, bi-level 3 and 4 bedroom apartments that are unlike anything else available in the area. Hardwood floors, crown moulding, fireplace, 3 bathrooms, tile balcony, huge walk-in closets, butler's pantry, lots of original detail. The units are highly desirable, and therein lies the trap. The rents are $1900 - $2,200/month (utilities not included). You can't be poor to live there, and yet the Toths behave like slumlords and treat their tenants like squatters with no rights. They are deliberate in their willful ignorance of landlord/tenant laws and their responsibilities as landlords and they don't care because they don't think laws apply to them.
It is a pattern. The county constable for district court (whom we know personally) finds herself in the building at least once a month serving a summons for an eviction hearing to a tenant who is withholding rent because the Toths have not delivered a finished apartment or have refused to honor their lease terms from Day One. Life becomes a living hell pretty quickly for new tenants who discover that Mr. and Mrs. Toth have misrepresented their property and themselves.
The Toths had our $4,000 security deposit for three months before we moved in (and the unit was empty because they had evicted the previous tenant), yet they still delivered a dirty, woefully incomplete and unsafe unit with unsecured and improperly installed kitchen cabinets and crookedly cut counters; an unsecured vinyl kitchen floor ripped and gashed in numerous places and falling short of the wall and appliances; holes in drywall that were not patched and painted; holes in every interior door from previous doorknobs; closets with visible unremediated water damage; improperly installed doorknobs and plumbing fixtures; deep holes and wide dangerous gaps in hardwood floors throughout the unit; and filthy oven and bathtubs. Over a period of three months when we checked in with the Toths about their progress in rehabbing the apartment for us (we had already signed the lease), we were repeatedly assured by Mrs. Toth that the unit would be "beautiful" and clean by our move-in date and that if they could not finish the work themselves by then, they would hire professionals to complete it. I have several text messages from Mrs. Toth stating this. Every such communication we received from the Toths is documented in writing.
We were livid that they had lied to us so blatantly and shamelessly. We had to move in because we had nowhere else to go -- and there was no reason to believe we'd need a "backup plan." We'd executed careful planning around this move so that it would go as smoothly as possible, arranging our lives and individual personal and work schedules OVER THREE MONTHS to align with the move-in date we'd agreed on with the Toths in writing on the lease. Outside of unpacking, we'd expected to resume normal daily life the day after we moved in. When we demanded that Mr. Toth complete the remaining work immediately, Mrs. Toth assured us they’d have it completed within five days. Three of those days, he didn't even show up and ignored our phone messages. We couldn't unpack, couldn’t use the kitchen, had to get take-out food or eat out night after night. The washer and dryer hadn’t been delivered either, so we couldn’t do wash for almost two weeks. We were stressed to the max living under these conditions expecting day after day that Mr. Toth would make good, only to find him intruding on our privacy on an open-ended basis on his own "schedule" and making no discernible progress on any task. His "work" was actually making matters worse and he left his tools scattered all over our living space where we'd trip over them.
It was maddening. We just wanted a complete apartment as promised, our life back, and Mr. Toth out of our space. After more than 10 days of this (most of which I had to take off work to deal with this), we exasperatedly advised him to take his tools and get out and we would finish the work ourselves. We did what we could ourselves and paid professionals to install a kitchen floor (which Mr. Toth had tried and failed miserably to do twice AFTER we'd moved in). As that was happening, the Toths delivered an eviction letter to us stating that WE were in violation of the lease because we didn't get their permission to alter their property! We were forced to engage an attorney and tie up months (and money, of course) responding to the eviction hearing notices and preparing a legal defense against their insanity. At the same time, we were also on the receiving end of their relentless verbal abuse as we came in and out of the building, which was unsettling and incredibly stressful day after day. We were also harassed by text message and email by Mrs Toth. In one demented text she accused us of putting deer urine in the hallway as further proof of our "damage" to their property. I am not kidding. I have the texts and they are a matter of record. We made no direct replies to the Toths and referred all of their psychotic communications to our attorney. They also locked us out of a space in the basement of the building where they had agreed we could store a number of our belongings.
We went to court with pictures of the dreadful kitchen floor and the other unliveable conditions we moved into on our lease start date. We won. Let me repeat that. We WON and it is a matter of public record in Montgomery County District Court, although the Toths continue to this day to claim THEY won and that they evicted us because we were bad tenants who damaged their property. That's what nasty pieces of work this toxic couple are.
IN FACT, Judge Kathleen Valentine ruled that the Toths had failed to deliver the apartment on the lease start date, which made them in violation of their lease. Mr. Toth's reason, he told the judge, was that he was too busy clearing snow from the parking spaces over a period of weeks to have our apartment ready on the lease start date. He also claimed that WE had agreed in advance to let him finish the work after we moved in! We were not held liable for the rent we withheld because we paid for all the work to make the place habitable AND the judge instructed Mr. Toth's lawyer to advise Mr. Toth not to attempt to install vinyl flooring ever again. Mr. Toth agreed in writing (he signed the document wihich was notarized and presented to the judge) to return our security deposit within 60 days in accordance with the state landlord-tenant law. This document is public record. We found another place and moved, leaving the Haverford unit in far better condition than we found it. No surprise, Mr. Toth ignored the notarized agreement to return our security deposit, so again we had to get the lawyer involved and Toth paid up after another four months -- but not before having the nerve to ask us if we would be willing to take LESS than what we were entitled to! All of the documentation representing the actions we took to recover our security deposit is a matter of public record and is irrefutable.
Throughout this entire period, we sought out former tenants of Haverford Castle and conducted primary interviews with them. Every one of them has corroborated our experiences. One current tenant who has been relentlessly harrassed by Mr. Toth for requesting a plumbing repair has had to involve the police -- all matters of public record. Some former tenants have taken the Toths to court and have been awarded monetary judgments (also on record); the Toths' simply ignore the orders to pay the judgments. Some previous tenants who were victimized by the Toths did not have the wherewithal to seek legal redress, opting instead to agree to an unlawful eviction because it legally freed them having any further dealings with them.
There is nothing the Toths can claim or produce to repudiate anything described here because there is a robust trail of legal documentation, photographs, and public records to demonstrate they have acted in bad faith repeatedly. However, it does not stop them from continuing to misrepresent themselves and claim everyone else is trying to victimize THEM. The bottom line is they are predatory, dishonest, and scary. Why do they keep getting away with it? Because when tenants finally manage to extricate themselves from this toxic pair who have unlawfully abused the court system to harrass them and cost them money on legal representation to invoke the very protection they're already entitled to under PA landlord/tenant law, they are used up and just want to get on with their lives. They don't want to be harrassed or falsely accused of property damage by crazy people anymore. They want their licves back. They have nothing left to fight the larger fight to stop these people from preying on anyone else. District court is merely a slap on the wrist for these people. It doesn't stop them. These people need to be exposed by consumer advocates with the expertise and resourses to penalize them or put them out of business.
Local township officials have been made aware of the Toths' practices by us and other tenants. But the township can't go out and warn every potential tenant who sees the “for rent” sign outside the building or makes an inquiry after seeing a Criagslist post for 3-4 bedroom apartments. They can only dispatch a building inspector who can issue a report for compliance that doesn't get enforced. They can't post a sign on the lawn that says "Don't Rent Here, These People Are Frauds." If this report helps at least one person, it's worth it.