Complaint Review: Profit from rentals - Too many to name South Suburbs Illinois, California

We are the original owners and rehabbers of the home which was leased to the above tenant through Justin Ericsson. This post was brought to our attention and we felt it necessary to address the claims above made by the tenant which are not wholly factual and this is our account of the situation, of which we have been closely involved in. We sold the rehabbed home to the current owner (Doug) as an out of state investment property. The home was certified for occupancy by multiple village inspections before being sold to Doug and we approved the tenant to move into the home in August of 2018. Justin was never the owner of the property and neither was he involved in any rehabs and repairs related to this house. The only time Justin interacted with the tenant was to place her in one of our rehabbed homes as a tenant. The homes leased by Justin are highly desired in the community due to the quality of the rentals and they have a long wait list of potential tenants. The security deposit the tenant mentioned in the post above (that is required of every tenant and is standard business practice across the industry) is still partially outstanding in the amount of $600 to the best of our knowledge.  Mr. Ericsson’s last communication was back in August 2018 and the conversation solely resolved around getting the tenant to pay her security deposit balance to bring her lease into legal compliance and to help her avoid any late fees on her file.  Mr. Ericsson’s company like most leasing agencies don’t accept cash or checks for payment which seems to be the point of contention with this tenant.  Mr. Ericsson has leased well over 2,000 rentals this way over the last decade very successfully.  To this date the tenant that posted this review appears to live in this house under a breach of contract. 

Beginning in early September, there were some "would be" minor home issues that surfaced one after another - in each instance, the tenant did not follow appropriate channels of communications as these issues came up and the delay to resolve them exacerbated the situation. All the maintenance requests have been resolved to date and we, the sellers of the home, covered the repair costs and acted quickly when the problems were escalated to us by the tenant. The issues were originally minor (leaky drain, main line rodding, HVAC settings) and if appropriate communication protocol was followed by the tenant they would have been resolved in a timely fashion. The tenant would eventually contact Justin directly which is how we were dispatched into action to resolve the issue for our buyer and the tenant. Justin was basically our leasing company in this transaction, but he assisted us with finding vendors to resolve the maintenance problems.

Unfortunately, the tenant experienced a less than ideal transition into a new home which we would never want any of our tenants/landlords to experience. That being said, things can happen when a newly rehabbed home is being inhabited for the first time and needs a few tweaks to run smoothly after being vacant for a period of time. 

However, all the accusations made here are magnified for the sole purpose of damaging Mr. Ericsson and his business’ reputation. Mr. Ericsson’s reputation in the community is impeccable having helped thousands of families obtain some of the nicest rental homes in all of southern Illinois not to mention his non-profit training programs that helped non-violent ex-felons obtain training and jobs in the southside of Chicago.  

Summary -- In reading the tenant's complaint, we find many facts are misstated and mostly fabricated. If the owner/property managers are not informed, we're left unable to resolve the issues.  Every time the problems were escalated back to Justin's team, we found a resolution as quickly as we could as the responsible party.  We have all the communication history with the tenant’s property management company and will gladly provide it on request as concrete proof of our counter-claim.