RPI Real Property Management Rincon Withholding Deposits, Fraudulent Business Practices, NO RESPONSE! Tucson Arizona

We moved into our new rental very quickly after a job promotion which would relocate us to Tucson. I was certain I wanted this house even after only seeing it online. We scheduled an appointment with the realtor for a viewing, but when I didn’t answer her call the morning of our appointment she didn’t want to waste her time driving all the way out there. My husband and I took a look around the perimeter of the house in her absence. Just before we left we gave the front door a try… to our surprise it was unlocked. These homeowners trusted their house to RPI, and it was sitting completely unlocked, in an area that RPI employees don’t drive to frequently because it’s too far away. How long was it left open?

We rented anyway. Upon rental the house was dirty like young children had lived their prior with a little damage here and there from what seemed to be a cat but we didn’t mind cleaning it up and making it ours. There is a large fan in the living room however that only worked by remote control, and the house did not come with it, so we requested it. We never received a remote OR a response to the request.

During our first week there, the master closet clothing bar feel completely off, I submitted a maintenance request online. With no response even after following up several times by phone and email. No one called me back until I threated to fix it myself and send an invoice, our clothes laid on the floor for over 2 weeks. At that time, I asked for the fan remote again…. with no response.

RPI does quarterly inspections of rentals, so every 3 months they will come out and take a look at the condition of the home. MOST of the time you will receive notice of their entry as mandated by law but on 2 occasions the inspector pulled up as I was leaving for work stating “didn’t you receive the email”. I didn’t receive an email, and both times the letter version came after the inspection had occurred. I never really minded, and both times I just walked back in the house and completed the inspection with them on the spot.  They check; all major appliances, look for leaks, major damage, condition of the landscaping, air filters to have been changed, vents cleaned, and overall condition of the house. All of my inspections, even at a moment’s notice were completely compliant.

RPI will also send companies out to make renters comply with HOA standards such as landscaping issues. Even after the quarterly inspections somehow they thought we needed our yard fixed up a bit as they sent a landscaping company out to us, from another city, to complete yard work and intended to bill us for it. When this company arrived at the house, my son stopped them until he could reach my husband. The company had no issues waiting for my son to reach one of us since our yard was one of the best maintained yards on the block. My husband’s company does landscaping, and they maintained our yard on a regular basis. The representative from this landscaping company that they sent, took pictures of our yard so he could prove that he never should have been sent in the first place.

We were never late with our rent, we always paid the full amount on time through their online website. They charge a surcharge of $4.00 every time you pay rent. It is not the website or the company on the back end who processes the payment who charges that fee it is RPI. I’ve rented for 20 years, I’ve had much exposure to this website and most property management companies do not charge you a monthly fee to pay your rent, but they do on top of admin fees.

Fast forward to December 2015, I logged on to the website and made my normal rental payment.  A few days later when reconciling my household budgets, I saw that rent had not been taken from my accounts, I emailed RPI right away to see what had happened. I did not want to send it again, not knowing what happened and have it pull rent twice. I got no response to emails and voicemails for days to follow. When I did hear from RPI, it was an eviction notice! Luckily or unluckily depending on how you see the rest of this issue, the notice had a real person’s contact information on it. Me and this person fought for 2 weeks while I tried to simply pay my rent. I was reluctant to submit again through the site not knowing why it failed in the first time. She knew the whole time what had happened and did not inform me, but rather just let it go continuing to tack more and more fees on my account. She would tell me “I didn’t even see that you logged in”, but yet I was sending her screen shots clearly showing that I had been in the website and my account attempting to troubleshoot. Several times I logged in just to pay again while we figured it out, but you can’t pay less that the total amount rent PLUS fees and I didn’t feel I should have sustained so many fees given that we were actively working on getting resolution to the issue. I decided to just bring a money order to them for the amount that I owed in person, while we figured things out, I logged into the site and got the total (fees and rent) then brought a money order to RPI, I confirmed the next day that it was received she said “yes, I received your money order but you still have a balance of $170 on your account”. I didn’t understand since I made the money order in the total amount due shown on the website the night prior. She said “for additional late fees”. In the end I sustained nearly $300 in fees!

• This after RPI finding out why my rent wasn’t successfully submitted, but they could see that I tried to pay it on time.
• This after ME reaching out to them every day to figure out what happened with no response until they sent an eviction notice.
• This after my never being late or having issues with billing prior, and continuing to send them screen shots of what the site looked like on my end and asking them for help on getting my rent paid

When I made all payments, they made no attempts to reach back out to me in order to apologize or to refund any sustained fees. I retained every conversation we had so that I could have a record of how absurdly this company conducts business.

We resigned another year lease in November just before the above issue, because even with the other things listed I still loved the house and I really didn’t mind drop in inspections. I honestly would never have mentioned it at all if the above issue and the deposit issue that I’m about to describe didn’t happen. a few weeks later my husband’s company promoted him back to our original location. Much to my surprise RPI didn’t fine us anything to break the lease. My hopes were that we were finally rid of this company and that we could just move out on a good note with them.

It’s important to know that during our time in Tucson that I only worked outside of the home 1-2 days a week, I gladly maintained every aspect of our home full time; to include a routine and rigorous cleaning schedule.  So even prior to our knowing we would move, the house was cleaner than when we moved in. My (adult) son and I took the entire week of prior to move in order to pack and clean. My parents came into town to help pack and clean on Christmas day. In each room we pulled all the boxes and belongings to the middle so that we could effectively clean every inch of the house. We moved out on December 28^th, 2016, we had movers come and move all of our belongings. I left just before the movers to transport our dog, and to arrive at the new house before the movers to let them in, my son stayed behind to finish up cleaning any mess created by the movers and to allow access to our steam cleaning company. The steam cleaners did not show; I will accept all payments due for the carpet cleaning.

After I was moved into my new place and settled I realized that I had left 2 items in the old house

• My guest bathroom rug was in the dryer (having wanted to wash it last thing on the last day for packing)
• And professional grade concentrated weed killer, as state above my husband maintained the yard with assistance of his company’s landscaping department. The movers didn’t move it because it’s chemicals and my son thought it was one of those things that came with the house (like touch up paint etc)

I again reached out to RPI asking if it was at all possible to coordinate a pickup of these items if they weren’t thrown away upon final inspection. I got zero response……

Also important to know

• My son is in the military; he knows how to finish up the cleaning in an empty house
• I have rented houses for almost 20 years of my adult life, I know what is expected upon departure.
• I have never lost even a portion of a deposit until now

I generally receive notice of my returned deposits pretty quickly, and it seemed that RPI was taking a bit longer than I anticipated to receive my end of account statement. I logged onto the rental site to see if there were any final costs due that could be effecting why my deposits weren’t returned. My access had been removed so I called…. Again with no response! I had to keep calling each day until I someone would answer. She said “we are running late getting your deposit to you but you should see it in a few days”. I thought, great, no problem.

Then I received the letter post marked January 29^th…literally a month later, stating that I would get back $0.00 of the $995 I put down to move in. It listed exactly these costs…to the penny, keeping my deposits.

• 212.95 for “cleaning”
• 137.95 for “carpet cleaning”
• 40.00 for “repairs”
• 404.10 for “painting”
• 200.00 for “non-refundable pet fee”

And was accompanied by a highlighted copy of our lease’s cleaning expectation

• dust throughout
• clean all floors and baseboards 
• appliances were wiped clean inside and out
• the cupboards wiped inside and out
• the sink and counters in all rooms scrubbed down
• the vents, fans, and air intake cleaned
• the bathrooms cleaned 
• all windows were washed in and out
• all bulbs were replaced

I was livid! I emailed the person listed on the letter demanding and in person meeting as these charges were absolutely unfounded.  She not only declined a meeting but patronized my attempting to want a meeting.

I sent an email stating the following:

-we dusted throughout

-we cleaned all floors and baseboards 

-all the appliances were wiped clean inside and out and I personally pulled out the alliances 

-the cupboards were wiped and we left clean liners in most

- the sink and counters in all rooms were scrubbed down

-the vents, fans, and air intake was cleaned; we replaced filers, AND we left some behind as our new home has different sizes

-the bathrooms were scrubbed to ocd standards with my cleaning toothbrush 

-all windows were washed in and out

-all bulbs were replaced with energy efficient ones, AND we left several behind 

I need to know, what was above and beyond normal wear and tear. 

-what "repairs" were completed specifically

-what painting needed completed to cost $404, since there was house paint left in the house when we left?

-and given the above list, what cleaning was $212.95?

-the carpets were not steamed, as I said in my first email, I do not intend to recover that cost

I had to send 3 more emails demanding an update with no response. Again I thought it best that we communicate over email so that it could be documented.  During which time I did some research on landlord/tenant law and also spoke to a lawyer. I now know that deposits cannot be used for “normal wear and tear” of the rental or to “get the rental ready for the next tenant”. It can be used for damages or to repaint or revert an area that had been changed by the renter to its original state. NONE of those apply here. Additionally, in Az Statute and in our RPI lease it states that deposits or a reason of why I’m not getting a deposit back needs to be delivered within 14 days of my move out date or you are entitled to 2-3 times your deposits. The letter is cleverly dated January 19^th but has a postmark of January 29^th AND I had to call several times in order to receive it by the 29^th

Four emails later I felt I that had to send the below communication to illicit any kind of response:  

 I disputed the security deposit refund for XXXXXXXXX in writing on Feb 3rd, and so far there has been no indication other than a vague category listing of what was wrong with the house when we left. Which I had to call twice in the time frame past the legally allowed 14 days that Rincon had to return my deposits (post marked Jan 28th). 

I want a detailed, itemized, photographed, and receipted list of what was paid for that covered damages that were above and beyond normal wear and tear one week from today; February 24th. 

If the above cannot be provided, then my deposits need to be adjusted and returned to me within 10 business days from today; March 2nd. I want the amount of $995 returned since the ONLY thing to have honestly been deducted SHOULD have been carpet cleaning at a price you show as 137.95 and that cost should be taken from the non-refundable pet deposit that I do not see utilized anywhere else. It was a pet deposit NOT pet rent.

I have rights in this, I've seen an attorney, I will not allow your company to falsify documents to cover this OR ignore me beyond my statute of limitations. 

She responds with

Here is the break down on the charges against your deposit:

Cleaning:

3 hours: 3 bedrooms/2 baths. Details to include: oven, fridge, cabinets inside/out, baseboards, windows, tracks/sills, switch plates, some walls dirty.  $212.95

Repairs:

Replacement of a toilet seat (includes the materials and labor) $40.00

Painting:

Touch up painting through out the home  $404.10

Carpets:  No receipt was turned in per your lease this is to be done when you vacate

4 surfaces need to be cleaned $137.95

Non-refundable pet deposit: $200.00

Looking at the break down that was sent to you under the deposit held you have two amounts one is the $795.00 and the other is $200.00 for the pet deposit.  In the body of the form you will notice that a non-refundable pet fee is charged.  That would leave a remaining refundable security deposit of $795.00.  Please let me know if you have any further questions.

That was February 17^th and I have sent several follow up emails demanding to continue the conversation regarding these charges and have been ignored.

My issue and the reasoning why is with these charges and situations:

Cleaning:

$212.95 This house was cleaner when we left than when we moved in, we passed all inspections even with no notice prior to entry. It was detailed like I would want the house that I am moving into.

Repairs:

$40.00 there was nothing wrong with either toilet seat when we left, if it was replaced then it was because it was simply time to replace it that cannot come from our deposits. I asked to know when it was last replaced so I could understand the life expectancy and I have with the rest of my requests been ignored

Painting:

$404.10 this home was painted a different color in each room. The homeowner left touchup paint in each interior and exterior color within the house. We did not paint anything within the house during the time that we were there which would require repainting so what is the over $400 of charges for?

We lawfully deserve to get back monies supposedly spent on the items directly above. Additionally, I left items I didn’t have to for the new owners or for the time it was on the market (energy efficient spare light bulbs, 2 air filters, toilet paper in each bathroom) AND I accidentally left enough weed killer to last 5 years in that home! RPI can’t even respond to me to explain anything……

So today, it’s March 3^rd and I’ve been fighting with RPI about this specific issue since the beginning of January. I figured I’ll have to take them to court to get anyone to take me seriously so I’ve started gathered some information to support myself.

My movers, my 2 past landlords, and the people who helped me pack are preparing statements on my behalf this week.  My moving company sent me the below email when I reached out to asked for a statement of the condition of my house. He stated, “we don’t even take clients who wouldn’t pass final inspection”

Hi XXXXXXX,

As a company we get 2 a 3 times the opportunities of what we can actually do so we "cherry pick" our work, take the best jobs. When I visit a home I decide if I want it by 3 factors, the first factor is the client someone we want to work for, the second one is the house clean and the third... Is the home and furniture well taken care of... If it's a dusty mess, unclean etc.... I price it really high.

We have level one, two and three. I look at walls, hall corners, doors, trim and the top of pictures & furniture to determine that. I priced your job to get it as I put at as a level one.... House is extremely clean, no damage and impressive couple/family. You are our target market. When there is any damage the crew takes pictures. I told them that you were a level one and to check for damage, no pictures were taken and they said the same thing about your home.

So you can have letters that put you and your home at the top of our inspection ratings.

For resolution to the issues I’ve experienced I seek a total of $979.55

1-      The fees assessed in December for late rent when I was attempting to pay and in contact with RPI then entire time - $299

2-      The undocumented and false charges against my rental deposits, the admittedly not completed carpet cleaning (137. 95) would come from the non-refundable pet deposit ($200.) leaving $657.05

3-      Recovery of convenience and good faith items left in the home; air filters (15.00), light bulbs ($7.00), 2 rolls of toilet paper ($1.50), $23.50

If this is unresolved, I will retain the layer that I’ve already spoken to and we will be taking the route of simply providing the lease where it states that “RPI will return my deposits or statement of account describing why you are keeping my deposits to me within 14 days” alongside the postmarked actual statement of account from 6 days after that, which legally entitles me to 2-3 times my deposit for unlawfully retaining of deposits.