HOA's and many property management companies being replaced due to bad management (Tampa: 2013, lease)

[bentlebee]

Lately a lot of communities ar changing their property managers and not just the managers but the entire company is fired.

One of the largest companies like Rampart is being let go at numerous communities and New River Township on 54 just changed from Premier Community Consultants Inc, run by Pamela Washburn to another company since the person in charge Pam Washburn seemed to run a company where no employees wanted to stay and many home owners got fines or even a lien for BS issues and the HOA needs to eat all that money since it was wrongly charged. For a long time Pam seem to have getting away by running it like a dictator but the community stood up and spoke up and now will be having a different management company running their community.

The rules have been changed and it is good that good run communities will make a difference since home owners will be more happy and their values will be able to go up faster since it usually goes hand in hand with good maintenance of the entire community.

HOA's can't be avoided but bad HOA companies can be replaced and should be replaced since these HOA's make most money of fines and not from dues so many overstepping their bounderies to charge BS fees.

As a home owner you shouldn't sit back but step up and speak up and it may take longer but in the end your voice will be heard and can make a difference when you want to sell since buyers read reviews and google names to check out places that get positive feedback.

[Pragmaticus]

My HOA seem to be a good one. This is the first time in what, 3 years? asking for fee increase and it is a small one. I see them doing many maintenance job making the community more inviting and nice looking. I don't even recognize them they exist if it were not for the maintenance job I see they are doing around. That's what I call a low key HOA . I plan to include a thank you note with my annual payment .

[EngGirl]

Oh, I am so happy somebody else think Pam Washburn is a person not to do business with. I am glad New River got rid of her! I hope she will be out of job soon. What a rude and useless person. I wish New River residents could sue you for something she done wrong.

It really depends on HOA management company. Looks like there are not too many good management companies

[jsun556]

I heard Skypoint's management company is horrid. No personal experience, just from what I've read online.

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by EngGirl

Oh, I am so happy somebody else think Pam Washburn is a person not to do business with. I am glad New River got rid of her! I hope she will be out of job soon. What a rude and useless person. I wish New River residents could sue you for something she done wrong.

It really depends on HOA management company. Looks like there are not too many good management companies

I agree...she shouldn't be in the business!

[MortonR]

I am a board member of an HOA who just signed a contract with a new management company this week to replace Rampart. Rampart pretty much abandoned our community for two months this past summer while they were being bought out/acquired, whatever. People at Rampart appeared to be jumping ship like rats and as a result we got kicked to the side and had nothing in the way of services for over two months. They failed to follow up on our inquiries and pending actions, too. We couldn't even get a call returned.

We stopped speaking with them a few weeks ago and directed them to our attorney. Amazingly, there was a flurry of violation noticed filed the last month, nearly a third of our community's worth. It was almost like they were trying to make up for lost time....

This is not my first experience with Rampart, and the previous one wasn't good, either.

'nuf said.

RM

[bentlebee]

I was surprised to get a violation warning letter for my property in seven oaks and usually if I got one they were right and submitted pictures of what needed to be corrected and it was done.

In Dec. of 2012 I got a letter for mild dew that needed to be removed and the tenant offered to take care of it and I paid the tenant for the work. In February 2013 the tenants moved out after 3 years of living there and I discovered an oil stain that I never noticed due to the car always parked when I was there so I notified without any notice from rampart to have the tenants clean it since that was part of the lease and the tenants hired a professional company and pressure washed the rest of the property as well since it was otherwise showing weird different colors.

In Aug2013 I got a violation warning letter from Rampart that my properties sidewalk/driveway needed to be pressure washed so I contacted them and asked if they had the wrong property since no pictures were incl. and it was done 6 months prior. They answered that in 6 months it can get very dirty....so only 1 letter in 8 years of owning this home as the first home owner buying it from the builder now all of a sudden 6 month later it was so dirty...without proof!

Then when I told rampart that I was not going to do something they asked me for pictures to proof how my property looked???so I told them in return"that's your job and with everything going on with rampart are they now saving money on making pictures to proof they have the right property?"

Their answer was that they would close out this violation!!!wow

Maybe my signature with having our office name and me being the broker was helping ....lol

Either way it was handled bad by them ....

They are losing so many communities right now and making things very difficult at another community they manage and that board wants to get rid of them...

For mg to make a 180 on my opinion is remarkable to some people since for years I was their biggest fan but after seeing the presentation they made in our community and how they handle other communities after their take over is shocking to say the least...
Indeed employees are either fired or leave the company so sooner then later they will have to change their name to save themselves and start to act like they did years ago or they will be history.

Premier community...run by Pam Washburn is also a company that will not exist much longer since the BBB complaints are all for the same reason...scamming for money under false pretentious and not answering calls and just putting the file at a lawyers office who also will not reply.

Her trick is not to help people who paid late and have a late fee but to apply the payments made to catch up in partial payments to the outstanding amount and the remainder part to the late fee so they are still late and charge another late fee for the not paid dues in full so that will be a never ending story.

She also went after people for the initial $100 HOA duel paid on the HUD and charging that as not being paid ...this is something I have learned from 3 people who don't know each other and some people simply are not good book keepers to keep all the papers after years of living at a property since you should never throw the HUD away unless you moved and sold the home and another few years have passed to be save.

On top of that she is targeting some home owners and many ended up in legal actions coming them thousands just because Pam is targeting them???even her own sister left her company simply because she couldn't stand the way Pam was handling things!!!, this coming from her sister own mouth!

[MortonR]

We have asked our attorney to collect the two months of management fees when they did nothing. We haven't heard back from him on this yet, however, he did agree that it was a reasonable request and he felt we would get it.

They admitted on more than one occasion that they had "neglected" our property due to changes in the company, so we have them on record stating they were not providing services. We may not get 100% of our fees back, but I suspect we'll get the bulk of them.

The other property I lived at that had been managed by Rampart at one time went through a similar situation, although not as severe. It was a fairly small (>200 homes) property, so I suspect they just weren't that interested in us as a customer. We sort of fell off the radar until complaints were lodged, then there would be a flurry of violation letters sent out, like they were looking for anything they could write up.

When the HOA cancelled the contract I believe there were 90 days left. I heard that the minute they found out the HOA was dropping them they disappeared off the face of the Earth.

RM

[PhotoProIP]

....and how exactly do you propose this to the members?

[spbbound]

Place I used to live in Tampa Palms fired Rampart a couple years back; made a huge difference.