I've debated posting this review for a long time but refrained from doing so out of fear of retaliation. Our experience with Lawrence Realty (LR) has been the worst experience we have ever had with a property management company. Our building was sold in 2021 and LR took over the property management.
Shortly after everything was finalized, issues started to pop up. We received a disconnect notice from the water department as LR/the new owner had not signed the new water contract. It took several attempts from everyone in our building to get ahold of anyone at Lawrence Realty to correct the problem. The water department actually came out to turn off the water to building next door to us--which LR manages as well.
We have experienced many other issues with LR throughout the last year. It is impossible to get anyone with LR on the phone, ever. They sent contact information and instructions to everyone via mail when they took over management. This info included a tenant contact number (that nobody answers) with instructions to leave a voicemail (even for emergencies) claiming someone would return your call. Less than half of our messages have been returned, and there is typically at least a day delay in receiving any sort of response.
On July 5, 2022 LR claimed they sent a lease renewal form via mail dated for some time in May, which was never received. We had been in a month-to-month tenancy agreement for over two years, since before LR took over management of the property. The first we heard about this lease renewal and rent increase (no complaints about rent increase, just the way they tried to carry it out) was on July 5th. On this date, LR contacted us through a random text message from an unknown number, without identifying who they were, stating they had not received our lease renewal form. Our neighbors, who received the same text on the same day, had also not received the notice from LR.
When we were finally able to get Meghan on the phone on July 5, we were told that the rent increase was effective July 1, four days BEFORE we received notice that they were terminating our existing month to month tenancy. This is a blatant violation of the Ohio Revised Code as landlords are required to provide 30 days notice prior to terminating month-to-month tenancy.
We finally obtained a copy of the lease renewal document on July 5 via Dotloop and returned it as requested within 10 days, via the tenant email address provided to us when they took over management of the building. Before sending the document, I attempted to call both the office and the tenant line to confirm I was sending the document to the correct email but received no response.
On August 3, Meghan reached out again, claiming they had not received our lease renewal form. I provided Meghan with screenshots showing my email was sent to the tenant email address. I was told that I should know to contact Meghan via her personal Gmail address which we had no idea even existed. I immediately re-sent the lease renewal documents to her email, as requested, and she finally confirmed receipt and accepted that our rent increase and new 12-month lease would be effective 30 days following the date we received notification.
Yesterday, we noticed a fairly urgent maintenance issue. As requested, I called the tenant line at 1:35pm on a weekday, left a detailed voicemail explaining the situation, and requested a call back. About 24 hours later I received a text message, "Plumber calling ASAP." I responded to this message asking who I was speaking with and to get more information. I received no response. A couple hours later, a plumber randomly knocked on my front door and said he was sent over by Meghan for an urgent plumbing issue.
I've concluded that Lawrence Realty does not care about their tenants. Every interaction I've had has been entirely unprofessional. Further, it seems that Lawrence Realty completely disregards tenants' rights and landlord obligations in managing their properties.
P.S. Judging by the demeaning and inappropriate responses from Lawrence Realty on the various other negative reviews outlining similar experiences (especially on Google), I'm sure a similar response will be posted to our review. At the time of posting this, I think the only positive review on Yelp is from a current or former employee. I think it's pretty clear when there are multiple reviews outlining similar issues where the real problem is. read more
