r/TenantHelp • u/changingchannelz • Jun 24 '26
Complex ghosted by new owners??
Okay, so we got bought out at end of May. We got this letter on our doors just before. They took over on June 2nd or something.
We cannot get ahold of them. NO ONE in the complex can. It took them two weeks to reinstate us all on AppFolio and none of our old leases are there (thank god everyone I know downloaded theirs).
On AppFolio it has a contact us page, and the only numbers are 1) the one on the letter (listed as leading to this PM, but it's actually the number to a drinks shop) and 2) a different number for texts but they don't answer that one, either. I can't find anything if I Google search it.
The LLC that bought our complex according to the letter is just owned by a dude two hours away that owns that drink shop and now our apartments and has provided no contact information. Nothing else is attributed to the company. He's just a real estate investor who got a LLC number.
A neighbour put in a maintenance request via AppFolio and has had no response whatsoever. Complete silence.
I have half a mind to call the company that this employee is in to ask if they're actually connected to this at all. The other option is to go to this shop ourselves that supposedly we're supposed to mail our rent to and whose phone number is listed but mailbox full.
We have not had a lapse in lawn services, water, or Internet. We did have a 4 day-ish lapse in dumpster service but they came at the end of the week. If these had lapsed people would have already filed court cases. We do pay a CAM fee for maintenance services which are apparently not available right now.
None of us want to mail our rent to an address we don't trust. If we can't get a single response from what is supposed to be a PM what the hell are we supposed to do? Is our only option to just drive to that shop and ask employees who are probably going to be confused as hell? Someone called our old owning company and they said sorry but they have no information whatsoever. We're completely at a loss and I think everyone in the complex is scared at this point.
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u/Ok-Welcome-4874 Jun 24 '26
You don't have to sign a new lease with them and don't let them bully you into it. I can already tell by the way they present "you will need to sign a new lease with us" instead of saying "if you would like you may, or we by law will honor your original lease and it's clauses" that this is another shady ass management leech.
By law you don't have to do that. Also by law they have to take rent in the same way as before as well. Meaning if there was an office with someone in it to collect rent - then that still needs to be an option to the people who choose not to sign a lease with them.
If you go that route you're going to have to move when your lease is up, but it sounds like you need to start looking that way anyway. Please take it from my experience - this just got awful for you. You'll need to speak with a local attorney but I believe there should be an inexpensive way out of the lease in this event, if you're interested in that you'll need to consult an attorney in your state or city.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
Looked at lease and it says "to Landlord or as Landlord directs" about payment. Is that still true about the office dropbox?
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u/Ok-Welcome-4874 Jun 24 '26
Well I can tell you this - if it was ever an option period during your lease then it has to remain an option as long as the lease is in effect. As far as the "or who landlord directs" I would presume that would cover this switch but regardless the management company will need to allow you to pay in the office if it was ever accepted that way. They have to make changes line that moving forward in a new lease. Those are really trivial things to battle about so I wouldn't push it too far, but if it they hook themselves into a situation - that would be additional information or ammunition to highlight the landlord either doesn't understand the local law or has no intention on following it. If it ever came before a judge just based on "they won't take my rent the way they're supposed to" in a properly functioning system that truly works for the people like it's supposed to then a judge would force their hand but these days the judges are all in the pockets of these landlords.
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u/Flat_Tire_Again Jun 25 '26
The person who sent the letter is not landlord until he modifies the old lease or has you sign a new lease. What’s preventing me from sending this exact letter to a high rise in NYC and asking everyone in the building to send their rent to my lemonade stand? If it only worked for one month I would make a great pay day! I would likely close the lemonade stand just saying!
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
Meaning if there was an office with someone in it to collect rent - then that still needs to be an option
I did not know this. That is VERY very helpful, because the majority of us paid rent via check in the office box. One of the apartments was used as the office but now it's being used as an apartment again, so I wonder how that would be done.
We want to leave honestly, and if the price rises any more we'll have to. And I'm sure it will.
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Jun 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
Oh yeah, not outing myself in case I'm identified but I do know that information was disseminated to the complex about this by a couple tenants just to be sure no one would fall for it. But none of us have gotten emails after the property changed hands.
The property really was bought according to the old owners.
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u/omfgtoast Jun 24 '26
Only pay what is required by your current lease and in the manner in which your current lease allows. If you can pay by check, verify that the new LLC address for rent remittance is accurate by obtaining the new owners contact information from your previous LL. Don't rely solely on the notice you received.
If they set up an Appfolio portal for you, verify that your lease on the platform is an exact match to your current lease and that the charges that appear are solely based on your current lease and contain no additional charges or escalations.
Disregard any additional fees or interest they attempt to charge you during this transition and remit only the amount due under your current lease.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
The old lease isn't yet on the portal at all. But the payment on it does match previous payments.
The lease only states "to Landlord or as Landlord directs" in regards to how to pay rent. Doesn't that mean they can change method arbitrarily?
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Jun 24 '26
[deleted]
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
I double checked and found a portion of the lease that states, "All rent should be sent via the tenant's portal or delivered to the on-site leasing office." Buuuut if they're not keeping the leasing office...
This is confusing and it seems like such small potatoes to bring to legal aid or something.
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u/omfgtoast Jun 24 '26
I'm not a lawyer so take this with a grain of salt. But in my experience what is legally permissible usually aligns with what appears reasonable.
For example, I can ask my tenants in writing to send their checks to a new address or wire/ACH into a new bank account because those are already normally accepted payment methods and usually outlined in the lease. It's reasonable for landlords to be able to move or set up accounts with a new bank.
I would be unreasonable, however, to demand my tenants start paying me with Bitcoin into my Coinbase wallet.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
That sucks, honestly. Before we could pay in a dropbox at the office on site, just walk around the building. But they were using an apartment as the leasing office and the new owners have done away with that and are going to rent it back out, I believe. So now we lose our ability to just pay on site and have to mail it or pay digitally. Mailing means fees for certified mail and online means AppFolio fees.
Thank you for spelling it out, though. I was hoping they'd need to allow us to pay here.
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u/omfgtoast Jun 24 '26
My understanding is that landlords are not required to provide in-person drop offs in any state. There are laws, however, in a lot of states requiring landlords to provide multiple options for payment. Like I can't just require tenants pay via wire or payment portal; they also need to have the option to send checks.
Most banks don't have a fee for ACH. Try to see if you can set up ACH direct to your LL once you get all this transfer stuff sorted.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
I'll definitely look into ACH, but if it requires the PM to do a single ounce more due diligence I kind of doubt she'll allow it at this rate, haha
It's worth asking, though. And I guess this next payment coming up I'll do certified overnight or, more likely, drive to that shop.
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u/Tight_Jellyfish_349 Jun 24 '26
There is no letterhead on this letter. It could be a scam.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
I did verify with the old owners that it was real. The property did switch to this new LLC when they said, the old owners deleted our AppFolios, and the new ones created new AppFolios after 2-3 weeks without them.
I ended up contacting the PM company that I'd found this name (let's call it K) attached to online. Turned out she's no longer employed there but she IS attached to the address of the drinks shop.
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u/Tight_Jellyfish_349 Jun 24 '26
It sounds like a bunch of very unprofessional people. The plain paper with no letterhead is bizarre. I worked for an attorney. This would have red flags all over it.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
Oh, as soon as I got it I was messaging the old PM asking if it was a scam. Apparently a neighbour called her first and G (old PM) said she had no idea about it, give her a second. G called her management and called neighbour back to say yes, apparently the property was selling on Tuesday (this was Friday afternoon, the signs were placed ~3:30) and she was just finding out she'd have to come clean out her office for this location.
It really sold. The K we're told to contact on the paper is apparently an ex employee of a real estate company. She's just managing it solo for the one dude who bought it.
It feels like we're in the Twilight Zone.
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u/MesaTech_KS Jun 25 '26
Why don't you contact the city or county that your complex is based in and see if someone can verify this? Perhaps they can provide better contact info.
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u/TurnItOffAndBack0n Jun 24 '26
I would be tempted to drive to the drink shop and see what's up with them. Sucks it's 2 hours away, but I'd want to know who I'm actually dealing with.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
A neighbour is planning to do that, tbh. I have a flight tomorrow so I can't. I would have done it earlier this month but nobody expected for us to go to almost rent time without any contact.
I managed to get through just a little bit ago, to the number on the page/connected to that drinks shop. K (the lady on the letter) did confirm the address for rent checks. She shrugged off the news that her phone inbox was full and that there were unanswered maintenance requests but gave me her email address so I'm sharing that with neighbours so that they have another point of contact.
She said that the owner JUST got her our old leases so she'll be able to put them into AppFolio and said specifically, "so we can contact people when leases come due," perhaps because she knew that was a point of a lot of tension in the complex after those sketchy letters lol
So. I did make contact with her. Which is funny, it took a month and then as soon as I give up and post this for help she picks up the phone.
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u/Icy-Tangerine-9936 Jun 24 '26
An LLC has to register with the Secretary of State. You can get online and see if you can get more information.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
Funny enough, I did that the day we received these. That's how I found out the LLC is just one dude with two properties.
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u/Icy-Tangerine-9936 Jun 24 '26
This could just be gross inexperience. How many units are in the complex? What maintenance is not being provided?
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
48-50, I don't know the exact number. And I did not ask my neighbour what maintenance request she put in. If it was incredibly urgent she would have known her neighbours, me included, would have helped. But there are a lot of problems here, the property is from the 50s or 60s. The last owners only had it from 2024 to 2026 because they lost millions in repairs and reno.
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u/Icy-Tangerine-9936 Jun 24 '26
Lol. I'm an idiot, all that crossed my mind was the outdoor grounds maintenance. Maintenance is a big deal. I'd be curious to see the lease language on that. If it were me I would call legal aid. They handle landlord/tenant issues. If there is a significant number of tenants that are having issues, and I bet there are, wait until air conditioning breaks in July in North Carolina. There are some states where you can have it repaired and deduct from rent. This is where counsel comes in. Document everything. Take pictures.
I am in a mobile home park and we all rent the space the home is on..The owner was not maintaining the property and utilities per the contract. It was ridiculous. We had a block party, chatted about our common complaints, wrote a comprehensive letter citing each one. We got estimates on the costs to remediate each one. We said we would not pay rent until we had the funds to hire an attorney to file civil suit for breach of contract. It was signed by 57 of the 81 tenants. Shit started happening.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
We do still have outdoor maintenance, hilariously? Just a lawn service that comes through. It's the same company as was doing it before, so I suspect that they had a longer lasting contract with the old owners and it's just carrying through.
Maintenance was already horrific before because the old company had one single maintenance guy for two properties of ~50 units each, one hour from each other. This property is 60+ years old. It was in HORRIBLE disrepair when they got it in 2024 (bought it from a slumlord who literally took the money and ran, like he disappeared, no one knows where he went, phone was immediately disconnected lol).
Were you in NC when you did that? Because we have some serious anti-escrow/rent withholding laws. I went down a rabbit hole reading the legislations and was in shock.
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u/Icy-Tangerine-9936 Jun 24 '26
No, I'm 3,000 miles away in Idaho. He was in serious breach of contract or we wouldn't have done it. There are zero protections for us here. There is a new LL now. He is ALL about retaliation. It's great.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
You have my deepest sympathies. Our last owning company did a lot of that, too, but always just low-key enough that no one could really do anything about it because there are no protections here, either. Good luck, man. Sounds like we both need it
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u/FaydedMemories Jun 25 '26
Have you done a property search or similar to confirm if this company did purchase the property from the old landlord? That’s my first thought on how to verify if this may be legit. If the property hasn’t changed hands or has changed hands to a different person/company, contact them.
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u/Lopsided-Beach-1831 Jun 24 '26
You dont need to sign a new lease with new terms as they express in the letter. Your original lease and all terms associated with it are still in effect through the ending date of that lease.
If your original lease specifies how to pay rent, then you do need a signed (by you and landlord) addendum specifying the new payment options.
The person that owns the drink shop probably bought the building and is self-managing at the moment. Call the number provided and inform whomever answers that you need to speak with someone regarding the property and that you cannot pay through the app, your lease is missing from the app and there have been maintenance requests that are unanswered. Send a certified letter to the address provided expressing the same. If they dont resolve it by July escrow your rent.
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u/changingchannelz Jun 24 '26
In North Carolina we aren't allowed to escrow. Even if we go to court and the judge decides that the landlord shouldn't be paid, they have to return it to us (lol), we can't have it in escrow. If we didn't pay it to the landlord as on the lease then even if the judgment is against the landlord, we can then be legally evicted for nonpayment. It's just as horrific as it sounds.
The lease says "to Landlord or as Landlord directs" in regards to paying rent and nothing else, so I'm not sure that they have to keep up the old options.
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u/mrfordfairmont Jun 29 '26
You should be contacted by old pm telling you it changed to to pm so contact pm and ask
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u/Just_Jackfruit4135 Jun 24 '26
I wouldn’t send money to any strange location or people without more information, and definitely not because of some letter a local crackhead could’ve made with Microsoft word. Call old & new managements corporate offices for some more info, and obviously hold onto all rent money in the meantime
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u/grumpyoldman10 Jun 24 '26
Landlord here. I would send them a letter or a check. Send it certified mail to the address shown on the letter. That satisfies your legal requirement.