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The worst experience I have ever had
This company was an absolute NIGHTMARE to work with. Throughout the year that we were stuck with Utopia Management in a contract, they consistently displayed an absolute lack of care, interest, and competency. It seems that they have too many properties and inadequate staffing. The staff we had to work with (Johana, Paige) was constantly impossible to find, always "in the field", I had to leave repeat messages and emails in order to get a response to a simple question, being transferred from one voicemail to another.
From the very beginning of the rental agreement we signed with them, there were problems. From failing to clean and stretch the carpet and cleaning the windows before the tenant moved in, even though the agreement was that Utopia will take care of this. Yet, they were prompt in forwarding me the tenant's complain about the dirty windows. It took months to start sending us the monthly owner statement. They would randomly deposit funds into our accounts, without explanation as to what the amount for, esp. why it was less than expected. This was solved once the monthly statements started coming but again, it took phone calls and emails from me to get this sorted.
We also made an unfortunate mistake of checking a clause in the rental agreement that gave Utopia the exclusive right to be our seller agent, should we decide to sell the house within six months after ending the rental contract with them. BEWARE of this clause and of Utopia's ability to trick people! I admit this was our fault, although the Utopia agent who signed a contract with us (Andrew) was present at the time of signing it, and conveniently didn't say anything. I felt tricked into giving Utopia these rights, but after we signed it, there was no way out, we had to appoint Utopia as our selling agent. Big mistake!!!
When we decided to sell the house 9 months later, the tenant got very upset and said she'll sabotage the sale any way she can. Utopia gave her a 30-day notice, so unfortunately the house was vacant when we started selling. Or we THOUGHT we were selling. We made a mistake of not going to see the house in the first 30 days. When my husband drove by on his way from a business trip, he realized that the front year and back yard looked like a grave yard! My husband with his sense of humor said that it looked like "Adams' Family house". All the plants and potted trees that I planted before the tenant moved in were dead, dry and brown, there were piles of dirt and trash, wood, wires, the whole front and back looked terrifying!
We called Utopia and learned that the agent who was assigned to us (Ryan) had been out of the state for a few weeks. It dawned on us that for over a month, there was no one to monitor the house, look for ways to promote the sale of the house, nothing except a sign posted in the front. We started going there ourselves on weekends, cleaned everything up and hauled the trash away. O
One time we found the door to the house unlocked! (Agents had been going in and out and Utopia was not checking the house). We started complaining to Utopia and finally our agent went over to look at the state of the house. At this point, almost 2 months after the house was listed for sale, with no offers, he finally made recommendations, such as "plant attractive plants" and "turn the electricity on!" I got upset again and told him that I DID have nice plants everywhere, before Utopia took over and let our property go down the hill.
At this point, we had been paying the mortgage for the house, plus rent where we currently live in, for over two months, which was not a desirable situation budget-wise. I started looking for ways to get out of the contract with Utopia, contacting lawyers. I was very relieved to learn that at this point we had no obligation to Utopia. We listed the house for rent ourselves and found a tenant within a week.
One last upset that I had was when we went to check on the house before the new tenants were to move in, and I turned on the washing machine in the garage. Shortly after if filled up, all the soapy water came out through the bottom onto the floor. All of it! Nobody told us about this, and this is because the old tenant moved out without telling anyone and Utopia (Johana, Page) did not check that the appliances were working before returning the deposit to the tenant. Last week I wrote Utopia about this and I asked our agent Johana why we were not informed that the appliance was broken. I am still waiting for a response. I will probably never get a response.
I strongly advise anyone to look for another company. These people DO NOT CARE about the properties they manage. My experience confirmed over and over again that these people do their 9-5 jobs and don't care about anything beyond. If you care about your property, I strongly recommend that you look elsewhere.
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