Time to Vent!!

So what started off as any usual happy day, turned into complete anger. We've lived in our new place for over a month and a half now and have been waiting to receive our deposit of $825 back from our old place. With today being the 30th, I was thinking, good we should receive it by today. Well we received something all right. The mail lady knocks on our door and hands us this very think envelope from Preferred Property Management (our old rental management company). Josh is like yeah our deposit open it up, as I'm opening I'm thinking to myself, why is this so stinking thick. Well enclosed the first letter say's we owe $488 (which with our deposit is them charging us a total of $1300). I'm like "WHAT?!?!?" After going through the stack of papers I find that since 04-01-2007 we have been charged $50 every single month until we moved out in Aug. of 2008. That totaled to $850 of what they called audit month to month fees. I'm thinking what the heck are audit month to month fees. After talking to a very helpless lady on the phone apparently when your lease ends if you go to month to month you get charged $50 a month. We were COMPLETELY unaware of this and were never told not once about it or that we were even being charged it. All they said is, it's on the front page of your lease. So we pull our our rental agreement and under the Rent and Fees section the only thing they have mentioned for this is $50 month to month fees. And that's the only place it's mentioned or written, it doesn't even explain what it is exactly or when it occurs. It sucks it's on the lease, but we had to initial all the sections that we read and agreed to. Well guess what we did not initial next to the Rent and Fees section. So proof, we did not see it, we did not acknowledge it, and they did not cover it with us. It's not mentioned anywhere else in the lease were we did initial nor on there important reminders sheet that they gave us that is supposed to list all the real important facts. Then there were other charges they placed on us, that most we agree (like carpet cleaning, clearing out of our back patio), but not all. So today I basicly spent 4hrs writting a letter to Preferred in response to what they are charging us. I could go into real detail on this, but I'll just tell you that there are a whole lot of times they could have told us about are outstanding balance for these fees, but they simply hid them from us. Example..I recieved a minor bill from them in Jan 2008 that was for unpaid utility usage from when we first moved in Sept 2006. Funny how they didn't send me that bill until a year and a half later. Well they also sent me a Trasaction List with this bill so I could see my account history. Everything else was current correct and up to date after I took care of that minor eleven dollars. They even told me at the time I was good. Well on the Transaction list I just recieved today it shows that at the time I turned in that payment, I had already been charged 10 of the 17 $50 fees. So instead of them telling me I was good, they should have told me I had an outstanding balance of $500 and what is was for. There's lots of other things, but this shows you that they simply hid these fees from us. I don't understand why we didn't get a bill on the $50 the very first month it was charged. Signing a new lease would not have been a problem for us. I am SO pissed off with this management company you have no idea. Who does this to their clients. They are completely taking advantage of probably some of the best tentants they've ever had. My relationship has been completely ruined with them. We had minor issues in different things, but they weren't that big of deals and they always seems for the most part pretty nice to us and helping us out. But while they were doing that they were hiding these HUGE fees from us. If you live in St. George I no longer recommend Preferred Property Management, and if you are currently with them, make sure your lease is current or they will literally rob you. Josh and I feel we have pretty good evidence and are going to fight out our case and take them to small claims court, if they don't agree with our terms I stated in the letter I wrote them. The letter ended up being 2 1/2 pages, so I think I laid everything out for them. So wish us luck and I'll let you know if we end up having to take them to court. If you have any suggestions or experience on how to deal with stuff like this, any advise is welcome!

Thank you so much for letting me vent. I feel much better already!