Management Companies

*WARNING* rant of epic proportions about to take place:

One of my clients is undertaking the condo document review period in their contract.  That means my client has three days to review the condo docs to make sure there's no strange rules and that the condo association is in the black.  The seller has ten days to deliver condo docs once the contract is ratified.  Some management companies deliver them in one day and some management companies take 20 days.  This management company took almost a month to deliver the docs.  I've called the listing agent weekly to find out WHEN the docs were going to be delivered.  Finally, this week, they were ready.  Hot diggity!   

After looking over the docs, my client had three questions about April's budget.  The questions weren't earth shattering but they were important to my client.  In two areas, a certain amount was budgeted and the association spent thousands more than budgeted.  My client wanted to know why.  In addition, there's some urgency in receiving a response.  My client is going out of town tomorrow for 3 weeks on a work trip and will have limited access to email and phones. 

The listing agent was very helpful and directed us to the association website for the association meeting minutes.  Unfortunately, the minutes from April hadn't been uploaded yet.

Then I called the management company.  I asked them the questions.  They weren't allowed to release the info.  They had "no way to verify that I was representing the buyer."  They needed the current owner of the unit to verify that I was the agent.  Except the current owner of the unit was out of the office for the rest of the day.  I sent an email with my office phone number to verify that I work for L&F.  No response.  I called back.  I spoke to the owner of the company.  He began to yell at me when I asked why he didn't call my office to verify that I was the agent.  He asked me if I had a ratified contract.  I do.  I emailed it to him.  I called back again.  He proceeded to yell more and then hung up on me.  REALLY?  You're the owner of the management company and you just HUNG UP ON ME?  AND YELLED AT ME?  That's helpful and professional behavior.  I'll make sure I recommend your company in the future.   

I AM LIVID.  I've spent an entire day trying to find answers to three questions.  I've had situations like this many times and it's never been this difficult to get answers.  My client has the right to receive answers to these questions.  Why is the management company being such a pain?  I guess I'll find out tomorrow since the management company said they were going to get back to me and then left for the day.  Unbelievable.

Side note:  The management company emailed me five minutes ago with the answers.  OMG.  This ENTIRE episode could have been avoided if they emailed me when I called at 1pm today.  It's time for a glass of wine.