Do NOT rent from these people. As a first time renter (only ever been a homeowner) there are so many things that, in retrospect, should have been red flags. First, some sort of initial walk through with a property manager should be done. Instead, they give you some form to fill out and you better mark every last deficiency of the house on that form to CYA, like seriously, dead plants and everything. In our case, the house apparently had a sprinkler system to water the small strip of already dead sod in the backyard and the Italian cypress trees. We were unaware that there was a sprinkler system at all, much less how to operate said system, until 9 months later when Legacy decided to do a random inspection and we were made aware of the system. The system wasn't properly functioning anyway, as grass had grown over the sprinkler heads and the previous tenant had somehow cut the drip line that went to the trees. Long story short, during the time we were unaware of the sprinklers, 6 of the trees died (3 more were already dead when we took possession of the house) so we ended up having to replace these trees out of pocket; a situation that could have been avoided had Legacy made us aware that this property was equipped with a sprinkler system in the first place.
Secondly, they allowed the tenant before us to do his own landscaping in the backyard, which he did a poor job of and didn't put down any type of weed barrier under his rocks that covered the backyard, and if you aren't aware, El Paso has a serious weed problem and the backyard became covered in weeds. We arranged with their yard guy who replaced the trees for us to also do a yard clean up, but because of weather delays he was unable to get to the house before we moved out. I gave Jessica at Legacy notice of our agreement before we moved out, and told her to call Scott, the yard guy, if she had any questions. She failed to communicate with him, sent someone else out to clean the yard, and charged us $125.
Next, they charged us $140 for "house cleaning" and when I asked what needed to be cleaned (because I thoroughly cleaned that house before moving out, per their cleaning list) Jodi sent me pictures from the move out inspection that showed dirt and two leaves on the garage floor (seriously?! it's El Paso, aka the desert where the wind blows dirt under your doors every day), showed one dirty side of the oven when it was pulled out away from the wall, old stains inside the oven (which is original to the 2010 built house), and a cabinet with a few crumbs in the bottom of it. Please tell me how in the world that warrants a $140 cleaning fee?! Especially when I know for fact I left that house much cleaner than it was when it was turned over to us.
Oh, and they charged me $40 to replace one light bulb and some batteries in a smoke detector, which worked fine when we left.
Don't rent from these people unless you want your deposit to be nickel and dimed to death!!! read more