We would like to expose Highview Property Management for what they have done to our condominium. We bought our Park Slope condominiums in January 2008. The sponsor hired Highview Property Management to serve our building, this is a short story of what happen to us:

a) They depleted our working capital fund by paying for repairs with this money and for services the sponsor was obligated to pay for. We were forced to function in a deficit since they ALLOWED the sponsor not to pay for his units common charges for months and did not proactively try and collect these past due funds… they did not initiate liens or late fees as per our offering plans calls for. Highview used our moneys with no regard or ethics until there was no more money.

b) They charged us for a 30 hour per week Superintendent at $15 (they only paid our super $7.50 per hour). Our super was hardly in our building, hardly cleaned the building, and caused more damage than good- a perfect segway for the next point:

c) They hired and brought to our building the most unreliable, irresponsible and unprofessional contractors to serve our building; having to pay twice, even three times on several occasions to solve one problem. Highview used to give out our security code to everyone (contractors, deliveries, repairmen) to get into our building since Highview didn’t want to bother to come and meet/supervise them, also because the super was never here either. On one occasion a delivery person of janitorial supplies was given our code, gained access to our garage and crashed his delivery van in to our garage door trying to pull in. The guy was fleeing away as we stopped him and called the police. This incident took place back in November 2008- as of today we still trying to collect the money from Highview Property Management. The cleaning supply company paid for the damages to our door and the check was issued to Highview of which was never deposited to our account!

d) Due to their observance of Sabbath, they are incommunicado for the weekend starting early on Friday afternoons with no reliable means of emergency response in place. We had some problems with our building’s boiler to which we have had full weekends with no hot water since they don’t have a real emergency service on weekends and holidays.

e) We finally were able to fire them due to the fact the contract was with the original sponsor condominium board. But up to this point we still haven’t been able to collect most of our bills, documents, and important information pertinent to our building. We need to hire an accountant to retroactively review 1-1/2 years of bills and paperwork for the obvious reasons.

f) We have gotten numerous sanitation tickets for garbage being taken out to early or on wrong days. During many winter storms our sidewalk and driveway have been left unshoveled or salted.

g) Home owners request for documentation needed for re-financing and/or other mortgaged related business goes unanswered in spite of multiple requests.

This is just the short story, it will take pages and pages to recount all the nightmares this company put us through.


Comments

  1. Highview Property Management is a full service firm focused exclusively on investment properties. By specializing 100% on investment real estate we provide clients with superior market knowledge and exposure. From our experience in the East Bay Area market and beyond, we are confident in the ultimate success of our strategy and the quality of our service to you. Our quick, responsive and professional service addresses owners’ needs in a cooperative and timely fashion. While our specialty is in the management of investment real estate, we believe forging long term relationships is what has made us so successful.

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  2. sorry to hear that diablorojo. That definitely sounds like a nightmare. We use Wentworth Property Management and eventhough they are not the most responsive company when it comes to shareholder inquiries, they have done right by us for a few years now (We have a co-op).

    I would suggest getting a lawyer at this point and fighting to get all of your money back from the management company. If you need recommendations, I can suggest one that our co-op used on various matters that got us judgements in our favor as well as a very good guy to work with.

  3. Hey denton, this was a brand new condo so the sponsor “owns” the condo board for a year to two years depending on the offering plan, there was no way to know before hand of all this problems, but I’m exposing this particular company in order to save other people from this kind of nightmares.
    We just hired Squire Management and we will see how it goes, the good thing is that this new company doesn’t require a year contract, so you can go month by month and switch at any time if necessary.

  4. There are some decent property management companies out there, but they’re really hard to find and you can’t expect miracles from any of them.

    I’ve heard far wore stories . . . ones where management companies put owners into massive debt over issues that never would have occurred if the management companies had been doing a fraction of what they were supposed to be doing.

    I have also noticed that coops with a large number of apartments still owned by the sponsor, like yours seems to be, tend to have the most problems with management due to lingering problems with the sponsor.

  5. Sounds like the board’s asleep at the switch, sorry. You CANNOT just turn everything over to a mgmt company and close your eyes.

    The super rides a Segway? lol.

    Fire the company, do everything yourselves until you can get rid of the sponsor, then use what you have learned to hire another company. The sponsor may have been in cahoots with the mgmt company, in any event.

  6. OMG! this story is so familiar to us, Our keyspam bill at one point wasn’t paid in the middle of the winter, we dindn’t have hot water (common building boiler) for 4 days.