So I moved out of my leas last year (June 2015), and completely forgot to update my experience upon move-out. The house itself was very nice, but Crown Realty is a bloody nightmare to deal with. I believe what they did with us is what they do for everyone: they kept the property listed as "for rent" for up to a week after accepting applicants. Let's say each person puts down $30 rental application, and if they get even 5 other applicants while this property "is still available" that's $150 they can pocket without even attempting to run a background check or process an application, since they accepted the first people to put an application in.
Upon moving into the property, I took a TON of photographs. You have to do this, too, or you will severely regret it. I 100% will attest that is the only reason we got any money back at all from the company upon our move out. At every opportunity, I told them I had photographs and was willing to send them and willing to use them if further legal action was required. I was firm about this, but that's what you're going to need to do in order to get any shred of money back. Also, you MUST be there for inspection. They will take that opportunity to mark down anything at all if you're not there.
They have absolutely NO consideration for you when you move out. A few things they did to us:
-The first I ever heard about our property being viewable to others was when a stranger texted me telling me that they were going to be at my house the next day. Yes, telling me. (This is verifiable.)
-The stranger said our property manager told them only a 24 hour notice was needed... The property manager never warned me this would happen.
-He also said the agent was planning on putting a lock box on our property (WHICH WE STILL LIVED IN), which would have allowed any person with the code to come in. Once again, we were not notified of this by the agent. (She ended up not doing this until later, since we made a fuss of it...)
-They claimed they would only allow people in the house when they were there. This was not the case, since several people randomly showed up at the house unannounced, thinking that we would give them a full tour of our house. When we told the property manager about it, she was all, "Oh no, gosh. They're not supposed to do that! Just let me know when they come by, and give them my number." Did they keep turning up unannounced? Of course.
- One time, a guy just walked in. I came home with groceries and was putting them up, and the door opened and he came in behind me. So I got to the point where I couldn't even feel safe on my own property.
- Once, a realty woman showed up, and she pushed at some blinds to look at the patio and bent them. I was standing in the entrance way, watching her. She giggled and apologized like it was a joke. Please see attached image for $35 blind charge that we were hit with when A REALTOR BROKE THE BLINDS. We knew at this point it would be moot to fight with them about the charge because they were ready to fight us every step of the way about every other little thing.
So, imagine... Two women, who still have live in a house, with a pet, maybe we have some delicate clothes hanging to dry in our room, a computer and other valuables. And they wanted to let people into the house when we weren't there... What would happen if my roommates' dog had gotten out? Would they have been liable for missing property? Damaged property?
When we fought back on the issue of people coming by when we weren't there, they finally agreed to let people in only when they notified us about it. And I do mean notified. They would text or call and say, "I have an appointment and I'll be coming by around 6:00pm." We had to tell them repetitively that we didn't feel comfortable with that when we weren't there. We were able to come to a begrudge agreement, but we felt pressured to be there. Honestly, I didn't trust these people in my home, so there was no way I would let me meander around without me being there.
And of course, a part of the lease stated that we had to hire a carpet company and provide a receipt. We did that, but guess what? THEY "HIRED" ANOTHER COMPANY AND CHARGED US FOR IT. They also charged us for trash removal when there was no trash on the property. $620 for deep cleaning, flea treatment, and trash removal. In the end, we did get some money back, but that was because we were extremely well-documented (email conversations, text messages, pictures), and because I was stubborn and wouldn't let them bully me. read more