Home Owners with Apartment Problems

While living at the Estancia Apartments I had very few frustrations. I loved the apartment; the layout was very smart and convenient. We had our own washer and dryer in the apartment, we had wood floors, granite countertops, stainless appliances, over-sized main room, carpet in the bedrooms, plenty of general storage, a huge bathroom (with jetted tub and separate shower). There were some downsides to the complex; they needed more windows, our master closet was small, only one sink in the bathroom…fines for everything.

Fine for not having your dog on a leash, fine for not picking up your dog’s outside mess, fine for keeping your trash bin outside your door past the allotted time, fine fee for paying rent online…they even tow your car in you park in the covered parking. Now with all this said, rules are rules and if you follow them, you had no problem. Then we moved out.

Now, I haven’t lived in many apartments, in fact, this was my first one. So, with this in mind, I didn’t know how organized or disorganized an apartment complex could be. I was surprised on how poorly they handled the following:

Now we had been in the main office (together and separate) a total of 4 different times talking to the staff about our move out date, last rent payment, forwarding address, etc. We turned in our keys and were waiting to hear from them about the post inspection and when we could turn off the power. We heard nothing for weeks. Chris was calling, leaving voice mails; he even called the main leasing office and they weren’t helpful at all and just patched us to the voice mail…again. A total of 4 messages were left over 2 weeks…and yet not one single returned call. Instead, my MiL received a letter bill for nearly $2,000 that was due in 2 weeks or they would “report it to the credit agencies.” They said we still had to pay the remaining rent (though we already paid the lease-breaking fee) and had to pay for new carpet and over $100 in “pet damages.” So, they ignored our forwarding  address and sent it to someone else entirely; refused to return our calls because apparently they haven’t had working phones in over a month; still want us to pay like we are living there EVEN THOUGH we informed them we were breaking lease AND paid over $700 fine for it. Fuming, Chris and I decided to go the office and get some answers. While my day didn’t go as planned and had to stay home, Chris carried on over.

Long story short, I am not thrilled with the results.  It is supposedly not as bad as I feared…but we’ll see. They say a new resident is moving in on the 31^st and we won’t have to pay the initial balance. But, seeing as I don’t trust these people at all (and they threatened credit agencies) we went ahead and paid the balance (grumble) and should receive a refund check soon. Chris got 2 different personal phone numbers of managers and we plan to call them continuously until we see some money back. Not fun.

So, basically, if you are in the market for an apartment in the Plano/Frisco area I strongly suggest you steer clear of Estancia Apartments. Great buildings and floor plans but the management is so awful it ruins all the positives about the complex. Such a disappointment. I am so happy we have a house now and things have gone swimmingly with our mortgage and HOA thus far. Fingers crossed it continues and the apt issues end!

M.LEWIS