Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/22/2024

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My wife and I submitted an application and $102.00 for application fees for a rental property listed by Freedom Property Advantage on **********. The property’s address is ** ********* *** *********** ** *****. When we self toured the property under the direction of Freedom Property Advantage, we discovered that the property had SERIOUS health and safety issues. The property was listed as “a recently updated gem” with “a newly upgraded interior”. The actual state of the property suggests otherwise. There is evidence of significant termite damage suggesting structural integrity problems, evidence of black mold, and a hole in the roof where pests are almost certainly entering the house. The entire house reeked of rodent urine and feces. When my wife and I reached out to Freedom Property Advantage regarding our safety concerns, they refused to refund our application fees and subsequently cut all contact with us. This property’s listing on Zillow is an act of fraud, and I hope someone will do something before people get hurt or ill living in this property.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/25/2024

  Hi,

  This is a gross mischaracterization of the events. 

  1. The applicants toured the home in person prior to submitting an application - if the home was in such poor shape as they claim, why would they submit an application after they visited and toured it.  This defies all reason and logic.

  2. Our application clearly states the application is non-refundable (see attached screenshot).  Our team processed their application in good faith, incurred charges by running a credit and background check for which we are charged by a third party vendor and spent our own resources' time vetting their application.  We went back and forth with the applicant asking for income verification at which point they said they did not have jobs but had bank statements.

  3. When they asked for a refund, we did not ignore them.  We let them know the fee is non-refundable as stated clearly on the application and that it is good for any our the properties we have listed for 30 days.  We do not have people apply just for a single property, they are applying to be qualified and it can be used for any of the many properties we have listed.  They did not like our answer, and threatened to report us to Zillow, the city, etc.

  It was only after a 2nd visit and they learned we would need income verification that they then wanted to withdraw their application and their money back.  However, we had already processed their application and spent considerable time corresponding as we worked through our application review process.

  Furthermore, we do not own this property.  We manage it on a third party basis.  Our team has visited many times including after their showing and we promptly fixed the hole they pointed out.  While it is not the best home on the market, it is livable and they simply could have asked if we could have fixed the hole which we did.  The owner of this property does not want to invest further funds in this home and while it may not be for these applicants or to their standards or tastes, that does not mean that someone else would not find it to their liking.

  While we are sorry these applicants did not want to move forward, in no way are they entitled to their non-refundable application fee.  

  Thank you,

  Freedom Property Advantage

  Customer Answer

  Date: 08/26/2024

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
  
  
  I have attached screenshots of the email correspondence between myself and Freedom Property Advantage (FPA)

  I have reviewed the statements from Freedom Property Advantage (FPA) in response to my complaint, and they are grossly misleading. 
  

  1. FPA questions why we would submit an application after self touring the facility if we have problems with the property. They fail to mention that we toured the property two times. Our application was submitted after the FIRST self tour. I had concerns about the property after the first tour, but it wasn’t until we toured the property a SECOND time with a trusted friend that the major issues with the property were fully identified, and our decision to withdraw our application was made. At this moment, we reached out to FPA via email mail (see attached screenshots).

  2. FPA failed to mention that they stated “If we can provide bank statements showing the full amount of rent we can continue screening your application. Furthermore, you can add a cosigner if you would like.” If we wished to continue with our application, we could have gone with either of these two options. Additionally, we now have employment in the area. If we wanted to continue with our application to this property, there are multiple options we could have pursued re: income verification. 
  

  3. As you can see in the final screenshots of the email thread between myself and FPA, they failed to respond to our concerns that their response was inadequate, and further steps were necessary. Additionally, they suggest that we only wished to withdraw our application after we learned of the income verification process. This is inherently FALSE. As I stated previously, there are multiple paths we could have taken (e.g. bank statements, co-signer) to satisfy the income verification process, but we made the clear decision to withdraw our application anyway. This decision was PURELY from the realizations we made during the SECOND self-tour. Furthermore, FPA states that we could have simple “requested that they fix the hole”. “Fixing the hole” is the equivalent of putting a band aid on the situation. There was no mention of addressing the overall pest infestation or the black mold both of which are significantly detrimental to the health of any potential inhabitants. So NO, I do not agree with FPA’s assessment that the property is “livable”. If the property is so “livable”. Why has it been sitting vacant since March of this year? Why have they had to reduce the price of the rent from $1,350 a month to $1,050 a month. There are serious problems with this property. And a listing agent that either fails to recognize or flat out ignores these problems is either incompetent or fraudulent in nature. 

  
  Regards,
  
  
  
  **** *****