I'm writing this review solely to warn other potential tenants (and property owners) so that folks can potentially make a more informed decision. I was a tenant with Couture Brokerage for many years and interacted with Toni-Lei Ponic frequently regarding the property. I had many negative experiences with Toni-Lei; I agree with past reviewers that she is a slumlord and that she is verbally abusive toward tenants-that was my experience as well.
There were many issues at play during my time with Couture Brokerage. I witnessed Toni-Lei break many housing laws. Firstly, Toni-Lei was known to show up at the property unannounced, as well as do drive-bys and send maintenance workers over unannounced. She even showed up unannounced at our door in the early days of the pandemic when we were being ordered to stay home.
Worstly, Toni-Lei did not provide any maintenance, repairs or upkeep to the property. When my family moved out, the property was dilapidated and in disrepair due to years of neglect by Couture Brokerage. There were no annual walk-throughs or inspections, and maintenance requests largely went ignored and unanswered. My family frequently spent our own money and made repairs on the home ourselves because we basically had to. When repairs were done, we had to repeatedly harass Toni and sometimes involve the homeowners, and repairs were not done properly or adequately. We were frequently told to contact repair companies and figure it out ourselves. We had things repaired that would be totally broken within two weeks of the "repairs". I don't believe Toni's maintenance team is properly trained and qualified to do the type of work required to maintain properties.
I came to believe that Toni refuses to do maintenance and repairs while still billing property owners for services that were never completed. I have personally witnessed Toni-Lei's dishonesty in insisting to our former landlords that repairs had been done that had in fact not happened. After we informed the owners of this, Toni Lei said she would "check" and magically, she then claims they were not done and she'd get right on it. I also noticed that after a time the landlords were removed from their access to viewing the repair requests that we submitted in the tenant portal. I observed a lot of triangulation with Toni-Lei between tenants and owners, always blaming one party to the other, lying and manipulating both parties while keeping everyone in the dark about what's happening, in order to continue evading responsibility and making money without having to provide any of the work.
As tenants, my family members were treated as employees of Toni-Lei, not customers paying her a lot of money to provide a service, adequate housing. Toni-Lei is a slumlord because she does not provide maintenance or repairs and she has no regard for whether or not the tenants she is responsible for even have basic utilities in their homes. She does not care if paying tenants go without running water, heat or air conditioning. Toni-Lei does not provide customer service; she is cruel and nasty and does not display basic human courtesy. Communication between all parties is not only poor, it's nearly absent completely. Toni-Lei's only objective seemed to be to collect rent and deposits, everything else was disregarded completely.
When my family was moving out, Couture staff refused to attend a walkthrough, would not show up, and never communicated with us about it again. I would advise anyone who is able to to avoid working with Couture Brokerage. Any relationship formed with Toni-Lei will only work to serve her, you will most likely be exploited, not receive what you're paying for and left a bit worse for wear. read more