Horrible, horrible experience: I decided to post this long confessional because, if we only had checked the many negative reviews before, we would have never embarked in this ugly time as his tenants. Hopefully, our experience could be useful to someone in the future.
Here a summary:
1. We have taken over the lease of a young family, super nice fellows, that had to relocate for personal reasons and interrupt their lease. They said that they never had problems with him, and actually quite never interacted with him.
2. Although requested, we never got a walk-in inspection. At least we were smart enough to send him a collection of pictures of the missing/broken items.
3. Few weeks in and we start to realise that many things were not in proper condition: black mold was growing everywhere, even the laundry machine was full of it as far as you can see inside. The tubing of the sinks were full of it. The whole bathtub was affected. The sinks were all leaky: We notified Joe (note that we did not pay the water, but thought it was a great waste environmentally and economically for the landlord), sent numerous pictures. His response was to send absolutely random people (as in non-professional and poorly paid, according to what they told us) to fix the sinks, who ended up missing most appointments (affecting our working schedule) and making a very sloppy and useless work. We frankly gave up at one point.
4. More weeks in and we notice that the railing of the balcony is rotten to the point that many bolts are disjointed: We notified Joe and provided pictures, no answer.
5. Here the worst of all: Come the first anniversary (March) of the contract, we do not receive neither the renewal of our lease, nor any communication whatsoever. We knew that the lease at that point would become month to month, so we didn't worry. Come July, we receive a new lease (obviously with a rent increase). We had no problem with the rent increase, but didn't understand the change of date from March-March to July-July. So, it turns out, it was all a scheme to have us leave the premises at the hottest renting time, when we would have also ended up paying hundreds of dollars more because caught in the students waive. At our protests, the best addendum of the contract came up: we signed that after the yearly lease was up, the rent would have been from $1595 to $3955. So, the answer was: if you want the lease back to March-March schedule, pay the difference in rent you owe, $7080. Diabolic!
6. 2 years in, we start to notice the work of termites on the balconies and in the kitchen. Notified Joe, no answer. Funny, because the contract states that he had to do a professional termites yearly check.
7. Come the renew of the third and last year: increase of 300$. We already decided enough is enough, but this increase was definitely helping our choice. Since we definitely did not trust the guy at all, we sent a certified letter with our termination. Promptly, we hear back from him that if we wanted we could stay until end of August, and at the same price of before (how magnanimous!). Turns out that he was on vacation at the end of July, and would have not been able to handle our departure or finding new tenants. In fact, for the same reason, we have not been able to have the walk through for the check out, although requested in writing. By the way, at the end the apartment was not rented for the whole month of August.
8. As a reference for our new apartment, he sabotaged us via either not responding to the inquiries or volunteering misleading informations about us. Example, we almost missed our current home because he gingerly mentioned we got problems with the HOA: Thankfully, I still had the letter we received and of which I copy the remark "the curtains must be white". It was Christmas time, and we hanged a red striped curtain, which for the HOA standards was outrageous apparently.
9. When we did not receive either the deposit or communication about it within the 21 days of our contract and California law, we considered to file a claim with the small court: we consulted a lawyer and we figured another nice surprise about the contract. The broker (the property manager) has no responsibility whatsoever, so we would have ended up suing the landlords, who I am sure have no clue of what is going on.
Landlords, seriously, why on earth would you like to be represented by a person like this? I read the only positive review available about the Pace father/son office, and it was praising his "iron fist" with the unreliable and problematic tenants. What if you have perfectly honest and decent tenants instead? What if your property is falling apart while you pay dues to someone who does not care one bit? I've been told my description of Joe fits the classic profile of a bully. I certainly feel like I have been threatened by one for the whole duration of our lease, and now feel like I got out of a nightmare of frustration and anger. read more
