Texstar Properties Unethical, bad business practices, worst leasing company I have ever known! Harker Heights Texas

Here is an excerpt of a letter I sent to them in response to a final move-out letter. It should explain my situation.

I would like to start from when I moved into the house at 2311 Phyllis Dr. At the time there was a Tex-Star office in Copperas Cove. My wife and I were in the office looking through the rental list. The woman at the office told us about the house on Phyllis because it was not on the list, but would be on there the day. She gave us the key and we looked at the house. It was in pretty bad shape on the inside. The a/c was on and all the ceiling fans in the house were on high. It was still hot inside, but the smell was pretty bad. I figured the previous tenants had animals and verified that later from neighbors.

There was junk and personal effects in almost every room, especially the hallway bathroom and the garage. The carpets smelled like dog or cat urine and there were stains beside every wall in the living room and dining room. The stains were dark bluish color as if there were water stains. I returned the key to the office and informed them of the condition of the house. They insisted that the junk would be removed and the carpet would be cleaned again. We really needed to place to live and when they told the rent was only $575 I could not pass that up. I convinced my wife that we could get the smell out of the carpet. The junk was removed and the carpet was cleaned.

When we started moving in it did not appear the carpet cleaning had any effect, so the office had the carpet cleaned again. We lived in this house for next 2 1/2 years and we always strived to improve upon it as much as we could afford. We soon found out that every work order sent in took a long time to get a response. I was always told that the owner of the house had to approve any repairs. To go back a little bit, we did annotate all the deficiencies on our move-in inspection sheet. At no time in 2 1/2 years did anyone from Tex-Star step foot in the house. It took almost 2 years to get the garbage disposal replaced. It took several months for the leak under the kitchen sink to be repaired and that was this past summer. In the hallway bathroom we retiled the floor, recaulked the tub and painted the walls and cabinets. In the master bathroom we did the same. It looked 100% better, but it was an on-going effort and some of it was unfinished when we left. The kitchen saw the most improvement. The cabinets were painted since they were in such terrible condition. We also painted the walls and removed mold from the lower cabinets. Throughout our time there we rented steam cleaners for the carpet and eventually bought a used steam cleaner and used it often.

As I had served in the Army for over 10 years I had always been instilled with the notion of leaving "it" cleaner/better than I found it. That is just how we treated this house.

I would like to dispute the November move out rent. Our end date was November 10th. With the current rent being $600 a month the prorated amount should have been $200, but the letter we received was much higher. I called the Tex-Star office and was told part of the rent from the previous month was not made and the remainder was added to the November rent. It was discovered that the full rent was paid, but it had not been credited to my account. The matter was resolved and I was told over the phone to pay $200 for the move-out rent, which I did. The closing statement reports an amount of $350. $600 prorated over 10 days is $200 not $350, but they still insist I owe the latter.

Since the move out rent was not credited there is a reletting fee of $510.00. I just request another review of my account and have this fee removed. I did not try to defraud Tex-Star nor did I leave without paying the move-out rent that was due. Also, I gave proper notice of intent to vacate and I did not break the lease to move out.

Update: I'm down to $696.90 for my balance. I was initially expecting a return of some of my $400 deposit. The sticking point now is the $200 final rent that they say is $350. I paid the $200 and I can show proof. But, since they say I did not pay I am charged $510 (reletting fee) + $350 and now $191.90 for a collecting fee. I'm stuck paying when I should be getting money back. I just want to help others, especially military families from doing business with this company.

Charles
APO AE
U.S.A.