This company is a predatory business and I would be very weary of entering into anything long term with them. I am a board member of a 3 story condo with a very old elevator. When I joined the board we still had 4 of the 5 years on a "maintenance" contract. I cannot say why the previous board locked us in to this contract as everyone knew the elevator needed to be modernized so why would we enter into a contract for 5 years of maintenance if we were to modernize before the expiration of the contract?
We seem to be locked into it and if you read the contract carefully it is written 100% to their benefit. They can make all the mistakes, they can literally not do anything, they want you to take responsibility if they kill someone because a door slams shut, and you'll have to pay them their fee every month. There is no way out of the contract unless for cause, at least on paper, and it even requires you add them to your insurance policy- why I'd agree to that I have no idea. The contract even auto-renews and the only way to cancel is to send them a certified letter no more than 120 days and no less than 30 days before the end of the lease. So if you aren't paying close attention, they just keep their claws in you for another 5 years.
They convinced the previous board that we could easily get 5 years more in maintenance, but then a year into it they "discover" that the door parts are all obsolete and they want 1/3 of the price for a full modernization to fix the door, but they'll "credit" us when we do the modernization with them. It's all written so you are more than likely will have to go with them to save some money if you end up needing to modernize.
I have now read a few other maintenance agreements and they are one, maybe two, pagers. No mention of liability, no insurance assignment, no certified mail renewal. Why would anyone accept such an onerous agreement? At this point we will just eat it and keep paying them the monthly fee for 2 years but not let them touch the elevators again.
To top it off, they were adding bolts where they didn't belong on the door assembly to keep it together (until they couldn't add more bolts) to keep us from realizing the problem as they bought time, because had they come back after a year or two and admitted the thing was obsolete, it would have made them look bad - it would have been suspicious. But in that time the bolts they added stripped and people would almost get sliced in half because the door would suddenly start slamming shut and was completely hazardous. Why on earth are these people still in business?
When speaking to an expert, who we chose to use as a light duty project manager on our modernization, when I mentioned SmartRise he literally had a pained look and he told me he has heard of so many problems with this company and he explicitly stated he would suggest we not use them for anything (the other two bids were fine, he said).
Lesson learned: If your elevator is 40+ years old, do not go entering into a 5 year contract with these bastards. Just suck it up and modernize the elevator as you should have. read more