Need Help/Advice on how to deal with Property Manager
 

Hi thanks for clicking on this thread, sorry if its a little long.

Basically, my parents own an apartment unit that they used to rent out, but just about two months ago our tenant moved out, and we've decided to put it up for sale.

About a 3 - 4 weeks ago, (June 20th) my mom noticed a fresh water stain on a part of the ceiling, so she called the live in caretaker, where they arranged a time for her (the caretaker) to come take a look at.

June 21st - There was a general meeting, my mom spoke with the Property Manager who was present at the meeting, but she pushed responsibility over to the Caretaker, but later on the caretaker said it is the Property Managers responsibility.

June 22nd - (About 2 days after stain was originally noticed) The Caretaker comes in to take a look at the stain, notices that it is fresh, and calls the Property Manager on the spot to inform her of the situation. (I was present for this). The Property Manager told the Caretaker that she will arrange for a plumber to fix and cover up stain. (Up to today we still don't know if its 100% the pipes problem or not)

Then no contact is made up until my mom had to call the property manager (July 6th), and was told that the Caretaker has broken her foot, so no work was done. My mom told her that the Caretaker said in the first place that this was her job to do, all she said was that she "understood" and will arrange for it to be fixed. Told my mom that she will Call back before end of day, which never came.

**Stay with me here, almost done.

July 11th, my mom called Property Manager at 11am, left message but no call back. Called her again at 4:30 and was told that she is still "looking into the matter". At this point my mom said she was irritated and asked her politely to "take this seriously". In response she was told "I will"

July 13th - No contact is made still, so my mom called again and left a message. Up to now there is still no call back.

Last night while talking to my mom she was really upset and a few tears came down her face. I have never seen my mom cry, so personally I think a part of the story is missing, but I really don't know what.

Needless to say, I'm pretty fucking pissed off. I will be getting shit sorted from this point on. The water stain today is still wet, but however it hasn't gotten bigger for the past 2 weeks, which leads me to believe that it's still leaking, just not as significant anymore.

So the big rush here is that we're trying to sell the unit, and a huge water stain doesn't help one bit. All we're trying to get done is for the pipe to be fixed (if it is the pipes problem) and to get the stain covered up. We were told we can't contract our own plumber, which we would've gladly done. And honestly I don't give a shit about them covering it, I'll do it myself since it'll be done a lot sooner.

So RS, I'm looking for some advice on how to deal with Property Managers to get this process sped up, if anybody has any experience with them or a similar experience.

I will call her everyday starting on Monday.

I have the Property Managers work phone number, her e-mail address, and her office address. She works for Remax is that helps at all.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long read.

"Thanks" will be given out to everybody who has something constructive to contribute!

First, does you mom not have condo insurance? Second, did they determine the leak was caused by a) the upstairs unit b) common area piping or c) a pipe that belongs to your unit? The fact that you can't contact your own plumber has me believe that it's either answer A or B. The strata will be the one that deals with this, will contact the owners and property managers, and will charge the appropriate parties.

However, like my first question, if you have proper condo insurance, you shouldn't have any troubles. I have a property manager myself who rents out my apartments, but it's up to me to have the proper tenant and condo insurance.

No, we do not have insurance.

Up to this point nothing is even determined yet. The pipes weren't checked and it also doesn't even seem that the Property Manager has been in the unit directly on top of ours to see if it was them.

The apartment is just a unit that we rent out, not a whole building, and we do all the renting ourselves.

Before we jump to conclusions here, perhaps we could get some clarifications?

• The unit your parents own is 1 apartment unit within a larger building/complex?
• Who does the Property Manager answer to?
• What is the Property Manager's scope of work?
• Who does the Caretaker answer to?
• What is the Caretaker's scope of work?
• Who told you that you can't hire your own plumber? And based on who's authority was that decision made?

Yes, we own one unit in a four level apartment building.

The property manager answers to her superiors in remax.

The property managers job is to oversee and "manage" the building. So say if we wanted to take down a wall inside our unit, we would need permission from her, who will get it cleared by the council. Any issues, such as if the unit door was kicked down, she will be the one who will arrange for it to be fixed.

The caretaker answers to the property manager, and the council depending on the kind of work.

The caretakers job is to keep the building clean and replace stuff like lightbulbs in hallways, kind of like a groundskeeper or janitor at school.

We were told by the caretaker who was told by the property manager on the spot over the phone that we can't contract our own plumber.
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If it's a leak that's showing in your ceiling, I would suspect that the owner of the apartment upstairs (if it were found that it was the source of the leak) insurance policy that would cover that, not necessarily yours.

If it's not taken care of soon, go to the strata meetings and kick up a fuss. Everyone should know if you've got an inept property manager or caretaker. Both are paid by the strata to do a job and if they're not doing it, the people paying their bills should know. I'd also start giving written notices to them so there's documented proof.

go to the apartment above and tell them there is a leak and it is affecting the structure of the floor? maybe they will let you in to see and you can try to pinpoint what it is or maybe they can. depending on where the wet spot is it could be a sink, shower/tub, fucked up pipes etc. at the very least id expect them to start complaining as well which means twice the amount of people bitching to the property manager about the same thing.

Go to the strata meetings and make a big fuss about it or contact the company that manages the apartment and file a complain with the building manager.

Also call up her superiors at remax. Property managers are licensed, and they don't want a complain issued on their license, nor do they want to lose the license.
Posted via RS Mobile

keep notes of all the events that occured AND a timeline. write it up with a letter and contact strata yourself. you have given them more than enough time to contact you back and to probably fix the problem already.

Okay, now that you have clarified the the roles of the people involved, I understand the situation better.

This is how things normally pan out in plumbing/flooding situations in a strata operated building. First, the Property Manager (in this case ReMax) will conduct an investigation with an inspector. The resident caretaker should be present. They will find out if it is 1) a common-area pipe that caused the stain or 2), if it is the upstairs unit.

If it is #1, the strata corporation will hire a restoration company (like Pro-Claim) to fix everything and you guys should be ok. However, I would look over your original legal documents when you purchased your unit in case they had some special conditions in terms of limited common area (such as your balcony) and common area (space between walls and ceilings).

If it is #2, then ask them if they have contacted the upstairs unit's insurance company and what the cause of the stain is.

As other's have said, continue your contact with the property manager and see if you can contact the upstairs unit's owners.

It's too bad you are dealing with such a crappy property manager...mine is quite good at getting to floods and other damage claims.

The Caretaker actually suspected the same thing, that it's probably the piping, or maybe a dishwasher/laundry machine fault. The Caretaker has provided them with a note for them to contact her, but to this day we have heard nothing new, especially since she broke her foot.

I don't have contact with the Caretaker.

Strata Meetings don't happen too often, and the last one just passed by near the end of June.

Written notices as in mailed into the Remax office?


I've actually also tried knocking on their door on two separate occasions to talk to them. But nobody answered the door. I don't know if its cause they think I'm some creepy asian kid trying to sell them something, or if they were honestly not home.

I'll try to also leave a note to get them to contact me. Thanks for the advice.


The building manager/Caretaker isn't at fault here at all, she's actually a really nice lady who keeps getting the Property Manager's duties pushed down to her.

And there will be no strata meetings for a while.


How does one find out who her superiors are?

I'm not 100% sure but I would think these kind of offices would work a little bit differently.

Say I was to call in, I don't think there would be such thing as a "supervisor" or somebody I could speak to that would be in the same office.

I have their office address, I'm willing to walk in one day if you guys think that will help


I will also try that, thank you for your advice.

Thanks for the breakdown... but I've yet to worry about that phase yet.

We still haven't gotten the seriousness of this situation in the air yet.

I had relatives with this kind of experience.

like posted above, DO NOT leave out ANY information, including who said what.
timeline, etc all important.
If your mom is as you say she is, i agree there's part of the story missing.
maybe the manager bitched at your mom or something, but i would definitely ask your mom about it and admit anything that wasn't told to you.
also, maybe you could ask a few neighbors in the building about their experiences with the caretaker / manager and use them to your advantage (be sure to thank them or it will backfire...through friends experiences)
you wanna know your shit so that when they come asking, you know the answer to there questions

if it is in the walls ie. the pipes, then property management company has to pay to get it fixed. If it was the unit above, their insurance should cover the damage.

I've dealt with a property manager at Remax before who would not do her job. I don't know what she did, yet she certainly didn't seem to do much. It took complaining to her superiors before she moved her lazy ass, and then she really did a good job and followed up immediately so I assume she got in some sort of trouble.

Moral of story: Don't deal with shitty people, deal with their managers.

Anybody holding a valid Real Estate License (ie Property Management/Strata/Trading) has somebody called a Managing Broker who is responsible for the Agents in the office.

You could call that specific Re/Max office and ask to speak to the Managing Broker and explain the situation.

The apartment building is actually made up of 80 - 90% investors, who rent out their units, so basically there are almost no "owners" living in the building, which would equate that none of the tenants would have probably dealt with the Property Manager personally in the past.

I'll try asking around, and if this shit still isn't sorted out by the next strata meeting, I will be making a big fuss in front of everybody, and will ask the other owners as well.

I'm sure the council will be able to run the Property Manager out of business if they're on my side.

Thanks for your insight.

Does anybody think that there's even the slightest chance that us (the victims) will have to be paying out of our own pockets?


I also have no fucking clue what this Property Manager's job consists of. I doubt she's actually as busy as she appears or presents herself to be.

I think she's just a lazy person.

I will be keeping logs and tracks here on Revscene so you guys can follow along, and also for my own records.


Thank you so much for this comment. That is Golden. I'd thank you again if I could. I can use this to my advantage in our conversations, that I may be bringing this up to the "Managing Broker"

I called the Property Manager today at around 4:50, and left a message. Lets see how long it'll be till she calls back.

I left a polite but firm message requesting her to call me back.

If no call back is done before 11pm tonight I will send her an e-mail.

You should definitely NOT get a plumber to come fix it and cover it up. Make sure that it's fixed and anything that the water touched gets replaced otherwise it will lead to mold. Get a restoration company to fix it, they deal with floods and anything leaking.

If it's a leak from the building, strata insurance will cover it.

Now for your issue, remember that the property manager works for YOU. You are the end customer, you have say in what happens to your unit and what doesn't. If they don't do anything about it, talk to the company that employ them. There are a number of companies such as dorset, remax, vancondo, pacific quorum etc.

edit: didn't read the comments, looks like most of the stuff has been answered.

Heck yeah. Honestly, I'd probably get some kind of signature confirmation on it to make sure it's been received. Send them the timeline you posted and all the times you've tried to contact them. Perform any other correspondence via mail or e-mail so there's a written trail. You want as much written proof as you can get to plead your case to the higher ups if nothing is done. There's nothing stopping them from turning around and saying this is the first time they've heard of this issue and if they do there's not a damn thing you can do without having some written evidence.

A month to fix water damage to your roof is unacceptable. It's affecting your ability to sell your condo which results in financial costs to you. (i.e. mortgage payments that you wouldn't have to have made if it had sold)

sounds like a grow up above your place.

I would suggest that you immediately write a letter and send it to the Strata council AND the ReMax. Get this stuff rolling. Just because they received the letter also doesn't mean that repairs will be done right away. Once they receive it, it will still take some time for them to do the "paper work" and making an appointment with a restoration company.

Remember to always keep a copy of all correspondence that you have written and received and make sure everything is as detailed as it can be. As mentioned, dates are important here.

I believe the Strata will probably act faster than ReMax will. If you ever wonder about who is in the Strata, as a tenant, I believe you have a right to acquire previous Strata meeting minutes. In most, if not all, cases, Strata Council members and other reps are listed in the front page, and you can bet one the Property Manager will be on there too. One of them listed will be the Property Manager's employer.

As for paying out of your own pocket, it doesn't sound like you will be in this situation.

Wish you all the best, these issues are a bitch to deal with.

You have to talk with your property manager and let the strata council know about this issue, but your property manager should have immediately take action to fix your problems.

If the property manager still didn't get any response to you, you should ask the strata council executives to change a new property management company who take care about their clients.

Thanks for all the insight guys.

I'll be sending e-mails to the Property Manager, and if no action is still done by next Monday, I will be sending written mail.

**Update July 19th

The Property Manager finally returned my call at around 12:35pm.
She was nice and courteous on the phone with me, so I did the same.

I reminded her about the issue, and she told me that this issue may not necessarily involve the Strata, and she still has to talk to her plumber. At this point I was like :seriously: so I told her that I'm working off what she told us. I would've contracted my own plumber long ago if I could, and the Strata was the only thing in my way.

She asked if she could call me back in 10 minutes, I agreed.

10 minutes later, no call back. I kind of expected her to not call me back, but I had to give her the benefit of the doubt, since its the first time I'm dealing with her personally.

I called her back an hour and a half after, and surely enough, no answer.

Called her back and left her a message "calling to follow up on our conversation earlier, still waiting for that call back. Please call me back".

We'll see what unfolds from here.

Man, you have been extremely patient with this. You have given MORE than sufficient time for response and action, why wait longer?

Just write the mail and get the ball going. Even though she thinks that this may not have to involve Strata, you should let them know regardless. That way there's proof you have tried to rectify this issue for a month now. The Strata may tell you that it might not be their problem, but I'm sure they can point you in the right direction to get faster response.