Customer Service is not in the vocabulary of Century 21 Prudential Estates Rmd Ltd.
I have been using this company as my property manager for my house for six years while I have been working overseas. In other words, I have been a steady revenue stream for them. Things have gone relatively smoothly until my scheduled return to Richmond.
At that point everything relating to my client status with Century 21 PEL went awry. It was quite obvious that as I was no longer going to be a client that the law, a client - contractor duty to act in my best interests, and common sense and common courtesy were no longer part of anything that held Century 21's interest.
My property manager, Richard W, and the manager of the franchise, Bill W. were unhelpful, sanctimonious, and at least three times broke the law or our contract. It was a shameful display of the client doesn't matter in how we conduct our business.
So, here are some of the issues I faced. I advised Richard 3 months and two weeks ahead of time that I would b re-occupying my house on August 1. I had been working overseas for 6 years. This is a private family dwelling, and not an apartment or condo. It's my house, my home.
Richard, in his haste to ensure that he kept the renters as clients, and moved them into another property he managed, failed to tell me that the tenancy laws in BC had recently changed. The new law is now that two months notice is required, and not three. Instead of informing me of this, Richard blithely gave 15 weeks notice instead of 8, and effectively screwed me out of a month's rent. There is nothing illegal here; however, I am Richard's client, and he is supposed to act in my best interests. In this case, he acted in his own; moving clients into another property he managed.
The next concern was actually illegal. Richard cooked up a deal with the renters to accept the damage deposit against the last month's rent. There are two major problems with that. First, it is against the law and second, if there is damage done by the renters then I quickly go out of pocket.
I spoke with the residential tenancy branch and got the facts from the source. I advised Richard by email, and he ignored me. I hired a lawyer who wrote to Richard and Bill. Bill called the lawyer and said they would fix it; which they did not. Apparently Century 21 PEL, Bill and Richard know the law better than lawyers and the government agency responsible for the law.
Richard smugly sent me an email from the renters dealing with a number of issues and questions I had. In their email, they plainly state that they were commenting on my lawyer's letter to Richard. Richard, in his complete lack of sense, or discretion, had given the renters a copy of my lawyer's letter to Bill and him. This is a complete breach of ethics and professional conduct, and likely also a breach of the provincial privacy statutes.
Third, Richard, in his wisdom, decided to withhold a month's rent, in the Century 21 accounts, for no reason other than there may be some expenses they face. I asked Richard under what authority he acted to do this, an he said it was simply company policy. Bill later sent me a copy of a schedule to our property management contract; and the contract clearly indicates that the maximum which would be withheld is 50% of a month's rent. So, they have now breached the contract., as well as the law as described above.
Bill is arrogant. My lawyer asked him to respond to a formal demand letter, and Bill communicated that he would reply when, and if he felt like it. So, the renters have moved out, and there is no reply as to whether or not Century 21 has actually fixed its breach of the tenancy laws.
I did speak with Bill on the phone once. He accused me of not actually ever having sent him any emails. I found that strange as I did have delivery receipts for each email, and none had come back from the server as being undeliverable. Bill accused me of having sent the emails to a non existing address. A few days later I did receive an email from him saying that his firm had ignored instructions from Century 21 on how on how to activate his new, and well published, email address. However, he did not, and still has not, apologize for saying that it was my fault that he failed to receive these emails.
I had asked Richard to coordinate the move out inspection with a friend of mine, as I wished to have someone present to represent my interests, as it was clear that Richard was no longer doing so. Richard, and Bill, seem to think that "coordinate" simply means telling someone of the date that they had fixed.
There are many, many more incidents of crap service, lack of acting in my best interests etc as the contracted clients, etc, but I am running out of room on Yelp. In summary, my view of Richard, Bill, and Century 21 is that they are feckless, incompetent, arrogant, and sanctimonious. read more
