I hired Dezda as my property manager in 2012 after moving out of state. About a year after the lease began, I received a call from a friend in the neighborhood informing me that my house was being destroyed by the current tenants. I got in touch with Dezda to find out what was going on at my house. Dezda assured me that my house was fine and our tenants were taking care of it.
A year later, two neighbors emailed me with very concerning news about my house. They informed me that my house was literally being destroyed; there were holes in the walls, three dogs using the bathroom inside the house and chewing the walls, carpets, and baseboards, the house was disgusting, etc. One neighbor reported 13 people were occupying the house as opposed to the couple and two children on the lease. I promptly got in touch with Dezda, and without even so much as checking on my property or preforming any other basic form of due diligence, Dezda immediately dismissed my concerns and told me that the emails were all "heresay" and "he said, she said. I told her to go inspect my house and take a lot of pictures. This is something she was supposed to do annually per our contract, but to this point she never did. Dezda inspected the house and told me that it was fine, just dirty, cluttered, and there were a lot of dishes on the counter. She sent three pictures of isolated areas, specifically a corner of a bedroom and a section of the dining room wall. It was clear that she didn't want to send many pictures, presumably, and later confirmed, because the house was in such a poor state that any more pictures would reveal just how bad it was.
Following this interaction, I told Dezda to evict the tenants. She aggressively defended the tenants and insisted that they stay in the house. Dezda said she cleared out all the people who were not on the lease, and that she straightened the tenants out and we wouldn't have any issues going forward. Like an idiot, I told Dezda that I trust her judgement and if she's vouching for them then it's fine, but make sure to actually inspect the house annually and keep me updated. She didn't.
The tenants moved out several years later, and I told Dezda that I intend to list the house with another realtor and sell it. She went into a panic and told my realtor (not me) that she had prepped me for what a disaster the house is. This was of course a lie. After my tenants vacated with unpaid rent and a year of unpaid utilities, my realtor performed an initial walk-through of the property on my behalf since I live overseas. The photos he sent revealed what Dezda had been hiding all along; the state of my house was truly appalling. There were holes in nearly every wall, the carpet and baseboards were chewed everywhere, the window trim, screens, and blinds were destroyed, the carpet throughout the whole house was tattered and the flooring underneath was saturated with feces and urine, multiple kitchen cabinets were destroyed, and the kitchen flooring was obliterated. The refrigerator somehow had the inside destroyed; it looked like someone climbed inside it and jumped in it. The built-in microwave had the door ripped off and a plastic bag in its place, and the oven looked like a grenade went off in it. The stair banister was destroyed, multiple doors were kicked in or otherwise damaged in a similar fashion. This is by no means the extent of the damage, but I'm sure you get the idea.
Dezda made no attempt to recover any money or fix the damage. Her narrative of the tenants changed, and she said they are difficult people and she would not pursue anything against them because "it would be like trying to get blood out of a turnip." If she did recover any money, it certainly did not make its way into my hands. She even had the nerve to keep their security deposit, allegedly to cover repair of a garage door the tenants destroyed during their occupancy. She had the audacity to tell me that I should just be grateful that I had tenants, and that she would extend to me the most generous offer of allowing her maintenance company to renovate the house at my expense. In the end, I hired a project manager to oversee the renovation and paid roughly forty thousand dollars out of pocket to return the house to livable condition.
To me, the most out of touch part of all of this came when Dezda sent an entitled and whiney email to all her property owners stating that when owners decide to sell their properties and don't choose to sell through Dezda Finn Properties, she loses the commission that she deserves. It appears to be lost on Dezda that trust is the cornerstone of a business transaction and in the absence of trust, people will turn elsewhere. Judging by the email she sent, it appears there is quite a large trust gap between her and many of the property owners who pay her for "property management services". Based on my experience with her, I am not in the least bit surprised. read more
