***NOTE: At this time, they don't appear to have any kind of severance clause in their lease, so breaking the lease only loses you the security deposit. I'm more seriously considering breaking the lease early (and getting out of this situation) given this fact.***

It's simple to summarize what Beechstone does wrong-- their office doesn't communicate. Rent late one day' They won't call you, they'll wait, and if they don't hear from you they'll get an official eviction notice and charge you for it. Don't have your car registered but have it parked in front of your apartment' They won't call and ask about it, they'll just tow it out from the complex and wait for you to contact them.

I moved in to Beechstone for June 1st, 2009. The didn't make and rescheduled when I called them two appointments to do the walkthrough inspection (it was never done.) I contact them the day before moving in to make sure everything was all set and I knew when people would be ready in the office and was told they were. When I got there, they didn't have the paperwork made or had even gotten the keys made up.

In August, my bank (ING Direct) was 1 day past the due date for rent checks. They claim to have returned the check to me, but they did not; I've never even seen what an ING Direct check looks like actually. I called them to talk about a separate issue and they mentioned it was late and a 75$ late fee was applied to my account-- I acknowledged it, and told them I'd add it to my next check.

On August 30th, I received a notarized (signed by the Sheriff's office too I believe) packet telling me I had 10 days (or something like that) before I was evicted. I called them immediately, and was first told that they had not accepted my rent check and I owed them. I immediately went to talk to them and had ING Direct overnight 2 more checks (to match the format they needed payment in.) They charged me 325$ dollars (including the 75$ late fee) for 'legal fees' and such. It does say in the lease they can charge me these fees, and not wanting to be evicted, I pay the fees.

When I talked to them on the phone, I was told that the reason they didn't accept my rent check and decided I needed to be sent eviction papers was because they figured the check was bad because of its appearance. I went in to the office and protested this, and very quickly a manager stepped in. They explained that they always return the checks in this situation, and that the returned check should have been notice enough.

In Mid October, I received another invoice from Beechstone for 340$. I called them up, and after a struggle, they told me they didn't know what I was talking about and I had better bring the invoice in. The invoice was on their letter head, with their address and phone number-- and in fact, when I got there, a copy was already in my file.

After some waiting and calling (and leaving an irate voicemail) they told me that this is another 340$ for legal fees with the previous eviction papers, that they weren't billed by the lawyers until later and then didn't bill me for until later still. This is on top of the other 325$ I have already paid, for a total of 665$ in additional costs because ING's check arrived 1 day late.

Aside from this, we've had the following other experiences:
* It took eight days and approximately four calls (including another irate voicemail) to get maintenance to address a problem with our kitchen septic, which had caused water to back up into and sit in the dishwasher and kitchen sink.
* One of our cars (listed in the lease by model, make, license plate number, etc.) was towed from in front of the apartment because it wasn't registered. The vehicle is in perfect working order, a 2006 (only 3 years old), and we received no notice. It is in the lease that vehicles that don't have valid tags can be towed, however neither of us had encountered this kind of policy before. We have only two cars between the two of us for our two bedroom apartment. This ultimately cost 120$ to get the car out of the impound, and would have cost an additional 50$ per day while impounded if we hadn't checked on the car around 3pm the same day.
* We made a list of repairs that we needed for the apartment when we moved in, and didn't see any of these addressed for a month. This included things as simple as "blinds missing in bedroom window" to "door doesn't lock".

In summary, it occurred to me that I could have been spared a lot of frustration wondering whether repairs are going to be made at all (let alone when) and nearly 800$ over the last five months in fees if I had received one phone call per incidence (about four or five calls total.) Given they amount of time and trouble I've put them through after each of these events, it would have been better for everyone had they simply communicated with me (or at least left me a voicemail) when they needed to.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/11/2009
With all due respect... it really isn't the job of the apartment staff to call you to tell your rent is due. That is why you have a lease. Why are you paying rent late and then complaining?

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