So, several people have asked me what Property Management companies in the area should they use or not use. I tell them the same story that I’m about to share with you. I have posted abridged versions on yelp, Google reviews, and Facebook reviews because of text limits.
This is the full story: My husband and I were both owners and tenants of Sweyer Property Management. The nightmare started when we became tenants. On July 28, 2017, my family and I moved into a home in the Westport subdivision in Winnabow. As I inspected the home at move in (I am a licensed agent and property manager), I found obvious water staining around all of the air vents in the home. They didn't even bother to paint over the stained spots. In September 2017, I contacted my property manager in writing about the foul odor coming from our HVAC unit. They dispatched an HVAC tech who was in the employ of the homeowners home warranty company. The technician inspected the interior unit, and stated that he did not detect any type of foul order. He did not inspect vents, nor did he examine any of the ductwork. He could not have spent more than a total of 10 minutes in the home. In the mean time , my family continued to get more and more ill. We had a multitude of sinus infections , ear infections, bronchial infections, and at least one bout of pneumonia that required hospitalization.
In early October 2017, I emailed my property manager additional photos showing that the water stains was spreading. I also submitted a work order per the terms of the lease agreement that our dishwasher no longer drained and needed repair. The repair technician who also was being paid by the homeowners home warranty company was dispatched to my home. He examined the dishwasher, said that he needed parts for repair and to get approval, refused to remove the stagnant, stale , & foul smelling water from my dishwasher, and left . I contacted my property manager by email multiple times to inquire about when the dishwasher repair was going take place. Not only did I not receive a response, but the dishwasher stayed broken until we vacated in late December. I again attempted to remediate the wet drywall and leak issues .
After making contact with my property manager, another company was dispatched that once again was being paid by the warranty company of the home owner. They used a probe, touched part of the drywall in the ceiling, and declared they could not locate any moisture. I asked them if they wanted to test the areas of the bedroom ceiling that had water stains or possibly the drywall near the vents that had water stains. They said no and left the home. I get severe migraines, and I found that there were areas of the home I could not be in for long periods time without getting a severe migraine headache. These areas included sitting on the couch underneath the vent with water damage in the living room, and sleeping underneath the vent with water damage in the master bedroom. At this point I was at my wits end. I emailed my property manager and asked her again about removing some of the drywall and assessing it or have a mold remediation company test the home for mold . I offered to have it done it my own expense, but asked if mold was found could I be reimbursed by the owners? For those of you who don’t know, mold testing and remediation is very expensive. With the size of the home we were in, you could be talking about $10,000 or more. I was told by my property manager that I would not be reimbursed.
At that point, I provided a written notice to vacate the property to my property manager and explained that I could not continue to live in a home that made myself and my family sick. She said that she understood, but that we would still be rent responsible until the lease ended or another tenant moved in. We vacated the property in late December, and I refused to continue to pay any additional rent. I received email after email from my property manager demanding that I pay rent for January. Her last email detailed that the owners were retaining counsel and exploring legal options for my non-payment of January rent. I explained to her that I had already spoken with counsel, and we were happy to litigate the issue of non-payment due to mold, illness and willful negligence . Miraculously, the owners decided that they would agree to terminate my lease after all. My husband and I each owned homes before we got married, and both homes were too small for our newly combined family. We signed property management agreements with Sweyer to manage our homes. The purpose of hiring a property manager is to provide the owner of the home with a qualified property management professional who will handle the day-to-day rental management of the owners home for a fee. Each of our property managers either ignored us or harassed us. They could not deal with simple tenant issues without contacting us. The best part is that often my husband was contacted about my home and I was contacted about his home, and the only way that we knew there was an issue is because we talked to each other. My husbands home needed an exterior door replacement on the master bedroom door that leads to the patio. His property manager contacted him because the replacement door was not the same as the original door, it was much lower priced and very plain. The tenant was very upset about it. The PM told my husband that he should probably get the other ,more expensive door that was outside of our budget, because if not the tenant was going to start to call in bogus work orders. How does calling in a bogus work order affect anyone but the property manager? If the tenant called in a work order, and no repair is needed they will be charged for it . His property manager basically tried to allow the tenant to extort my husband so that she could have peace and quiet, and she mentioned to my husband that he needed to make a decision quickly because she was leaving soon to go on her honeymoon. While demanding tenants can be annoying and tiresome as I know firsthand, working with your tenants is part of being a property manager. Being a property manager is not just sitting at a desk and answering phones; you are a sales person, you represent the homeowner, you inspect homes, and you provide customer service to any and all customers including owners, tenant, and contractors.
That’s not the most heinous part of this story. The general manager of Sweyer Property Management, contacted me earlier in the week to and asked if we could have a meeting on Friday, April 20, 2018; she also asked me to prepare a list of questions and grievances by Thursday so that she could have a chance to review them and have ready answers. I told her I could not get away from the office for a face to face meeting, but I would be happy to phone conference at 1pm. Recently, my husband’s property management agreement was terminated by Sweyer. Part of the reasons stated that he did not complete work orders in a timely manner. I found that to be odd because most of the work orders performed at his property were repaired by contractors assigned by the property management company. Based on comparing the work order dates to the invoice dates and notes,some of these work orders scheduled by the property manager took over a month to complete. My conversation with the GM started with pleasantries. Prior to our conversation, I had my husband request all of the service requests from his home and all of the invoices from his home as well.
My first question to the GM was " What does Sweyer Property Management consider a timely manner?” She became very defensive and began to ramble on about scheduling contractors and working with tenant schedules; at no point did she answer my question about what defined timely manner. This made the reasoning behind canceling my husbands PMA suspicious at best. She complained that my husbands tenant called every day to complain that his work orders were taking to long to complete; these work orders were scheduled and maintained by Sweyer Property Management. My next question was " Why does my husband have 26 service requests and only 20 invoices? Where are his missing invoices?”. The GM became incensed at that question, and in an louder tone of voice said that the invoices were not missing. She went on to say that some of these invoices were in storage and needed to be located. I brought a couple of things to her attention at that point.
One, the PM said her company files invoices into storage after a period time. I have used the same software that her company uses for sometime now. It is possible to attach the invoice to the work order in the software. Doing so could avoid the inference of negligence and the appearance of nefarious accounting on the part of herself and her team. Documentation of money that Sweyer has spent on my husbands behalf or any owners behalf for that matter, should be easily located. My Second question was, "If I have a child and someone asks me where my child is and I say that " I have a general idea of where there are, but it will take some time to locate them. I can’t give you an exact time but I will locate them”. My child would be considered missing, right ? She asked me what other issues I was having, and I explained that we were had lived in a water damaged home that was always damp, my family was continuously sick, and to add insult to injury my tenants received better treatment than I did as an owner. She asked me to explain and I relayed to her the situation where my tenants did not have a dryer for five days , one of those days was because they missed a scheduled appointment with the repair tech. My property manager encouraged me to give them a $ 50 rent credit in addition to the brand new dryer they received. I compared that to the almost 3 months that I went without a working dishwasher in my rental and not only did my property manager not insure that the repair had been completed , even after being told multiple times that the dishwasher wasn’t working, she closed out the service request as if the repair had been completed . The GM stated that she would have to look into the issue, which was odd because she sounded like she was sitting in front of a computer based on the typing I heard, and her giving me detailed account information throughout our conversation She went on to add that she works for a great company with great property managers and that if a tenant is wronged and it’s the company’s fault, they will be reimbursed. I then asked her if I was going to receive any type of reimbursement for having a nonworking dishwasher for three months due to the willful negligence of her staff. She said that she would not be applying any credits to me because that happened " in the fall”. I’m not sure what the time of year or season has to do with willful negligence or reimbursement, but I was proud of the fact that she was able to admit that a member for staff committed willful negligence. She sarcastically asked me if I actually wanted a credit, and I responded to her that her previous statement about her company acknowledged that I was entitled to one. The GM then explained that she lost the Management account of my former rental home due to my behavior; my behavior was never identified but I assumed that they may have been angered that I asked them to repair their home that I was renting. The GM railed that this was a 10 year old account that she lost. I told her that I was terribly sorry for her loss, but I don’t think that my family and I should be required to live sickly and in subpar conditions so that her company could maintain a management fee each month, and that what it really sounds like she is doing is retaliating against myself and my husband because of the loss of a 10 year contract. As I once again brought up how sick my family and I became a living in the house, she asked me if I had any documentation from a medical professional stating that my illness was caused by mold in the house. You could hear the shock when told her that I did. Her tone immediately changed from hostile to scared.
The GM was very confrontational, rude, and dismissive for most of our conversation. Now instead of cutting me off during the conversation or talking over me after I repeatedly asked her not to, she very politely asked me if I would be willing to provide her with that documentation. I, of course, said that I would not do so at this time, but she will probably receive those along with other documents at a later date. I explained to the GM that this was not a call that she made in good faith. She spent most of the call defending the actions of her team and posturing about her great company and her great staff. My property management agreement ends in mid July when my tenants are scheduled to move out of my home; I have already submitted my written cancellation of the property management agreement to my property manager. The GM offered multiple to let me out of my property management agreement immediately because we had a difference of opinion on management style. I explained to the GM that she or I can give a 60 day notice prior to the expiration of the current property management agreement, however if she chooses terminate my agreement early she must have cause. I don’t think that she wants to list mismanagement ny her staff as cause. I also explained to her that we did not have a meeting of the minds in a few areas l do not feel that she cares about her owners; I believe that she cares greatly about their management fees including mine received every month. I don’t feel that she cares about her tenants, and that is based not only on my personal experience, but with the experiences told to me by the tenants in Dan’s home that stayed after being managed by Sweyer. The issue that was the most debated was that she described Sweyer Property Management as a great company. She also boasted that she has great property managers.
Based on my personal experience with more than one property manager at Sweyer, I would have to disagree. Sweyer’s constant job postings for managers, assistant managers, and front desk staff reflect a very high rate of turnover that a good company probably wouldn’t have. As an aside, I receive my security deposit accounting for the home with the water stains and water leak issues. One of the invoices noted that all that the water stains had been painted lol.
Jacquelyn
Wilmington,#2Author of original report
Sun, June 10, 2018
I am very sorry that you were treated that way. I did not find out about the issue with the dryer until very late, that’s one of the reasons I gave you a brand new dryer. I’ve never dealt with a company like them before; when I spoke with the GM, Eva Farr, I had to remind her that at that time I was an owner who gave her a 12% management fee every month. I hate having to send multiple emails before an issue is resolved. Even as an owner, I have the same problems you do with Sweyer.
Wilmington
North Carolina,#3Consumer Comment
Mon, May 21, 2018
Dear Jacquelyn:
I am your tenant. the clothes dryer did not work from the first day. I made many, many written requests to repair or replace it. Your property manager lied over and over again blaming me for the drying not being repaired. She said that the repairman came to the property and that I was not there which was a lie. The property manager never assessed me a missed appointment fee because I never missed an appointment. I waited about 7 times for the repairman and he never showed up. I saw on the surveillance camera that A. Howell showed up on about the 7th attempt and waited for the repairman who called her and told her that he had a flat tire and would be about 2 hours late. There was one time he showed up for an appointment but he had no tools to do his job and asked to borrow my tools (ladder, flash light, etc) and his helper (Calvin) was trying to talk sweet to my cousin who was at the property waiting for the repairman. She locked herself in the bedroom to get away from the awkward situation. The repairman, Lou, called my cousin one time and talked to her only about where to find the nice beaches are in the area. I will gladly show you the email communications which prove everyting I tell you.
I was so frustrated with these games that used up countless hours of my time that I suggested that they remove the dryer from the lease and lower the rent $50 per month.
And this is only part of the nightmare with Sweyer Property Management.
The dryer did not work for more than 60 days.
Sweyer Property Management is a total nightmare.