Informing current and future clients who are using Bobb Bates, John L. Scott Real Estate, Property Management Services, for home leasing or home sales. Our family moved into a home south of Monroe, WA. on a seven-month lease. The previous tenants relocated (or were forced to move) by Bobb. The house was a disaster - it had not been cleaned, the lawn was totally dead - killed by lack of watering in the summer heat, and the property in general hadn't been maintained properly in years. This house is still currently available for rent, which is why we are informing you not to use John L. Scott Property Management Services or Bobb Bates.
Bobb's modus operandii is to get a family on a short-term lease agreeement, then raise the rental amount without proper documentation or notice per the Washington State Landlord-Tenant Law. He typically does this right at lease end so that the tenant has no time to negotiate with him on the increases. This law allows a clause for the property management company or property manager responsible to give appropriate notice per the law to increase the monthly lease amount. Bobb can and will raise the montly rent rate because he realizes that if he waits, then the tenant has no wiggle room to negotiate much of anything. Such as he is the type of scumbag vermin that plagues the rental property management companies now as many landlords realize that it is a great method to scam people out of their money. Probably this happened to the previous tenants as well, but we have no way of knowing, but we did know that they were in a hurry to move out which would indicate that this is probably the case. At any rate, we're not the first ones to be screwed over by Bobb Bates.
During our stay, we had very little contact with Bobb. We contacted Bobb two weeks before our lease agreement expired and inquired about a new lease. One and a half weeks went by, with no reply from Bobb. When he did reply two days prior to our lease ending, he stated that he would increase the rent by $350 per month PLUS add a clause for rebuilding the yard (which previous tenants damaged and neglected)! In addition, he also stated that we were on the hook to pay for any pest extermination (yellowjackets, ants, and a rodent infestation in the garage). If we would have agreed to the lease on these terms, it would have amounted to an additional $1000 per month rental increase. Landlord-Tenant Law specificially states that the tenants are not responsible for paying for a lawn to be reseeded or sod installed or for a yard to be replaced - this is the sole responsiblilty of the homeowner.
We refused these new lease terms, and asked Bobb and John L. Scott Real Estate Property Management services to stay month-to-month until June so that our kids wouldn't be affected by having to move. We agreed to the rent increase, but not to the yard rebuild which was unlawful anyway. However, nothing doing - Bobb didn't agree to our terms, saying that it wasn't "personal" and that "business is business." Bobb sent a legal Notice to Vacate and we had less than one month to find a new home to lease. All the while, Bobb sent us a few nasty emails demanding we vacate the premises at the end of the month without considering that we had to move a 2600 square foot household and two children. We were very fortunate to find a new rental property to lease in time. However, being the schmuck that Bobb is, he charged us for rent on the three overage days that we had since we were unable to move during the week and had to wait until the weekend. He charged us until the following Monday when he received the keys from us. Out of a $2400 deposit, we have only received about $500 of it back.
Never mind that we have two school-age children who were very disrupted by this and had to move during the school year. Never mind that Bobb did as little as possible to serve us when we asked for maintenance - his repairman was incompetent. We scheduled his repair man on two separate occasions to come fix leaky faucets. We found out that, after the repair man completed his work, that within two hours, the faucets that he had fixed leaked again. Repair requests also took much too long - two weeks average each of the three times total that we requested repairs, and when repairs happened, they were shoddy and incomplete.
You can look for other negative reports on Bobb on the internet. Maybe you'll find some, maybe not. Bobb is a small-time, low-class vermin sucking people for their money as that is all he is interested in. Take it from us, if you do any business with Bobb, you won't be satisfied as he doesn't have the customer as his first priority. Making money unscrupulously and plying his customers with utter incompetency can and will be your experience, too, so do yourself a favor - avoid doing any business with him and go elsewhere with your real estate or property management business needs.
Bobb Bates Reviews
Informing current and future clients who are using Bobb Bates, John L. Scott Real Estate, Property Management Services, for home leasing or home sales. Our family moved into a home south of Monroe, WA. on a seven-month lease. The previous tenants relocated (or were forced to move) by Bobb. The house was a disaster - it had not been cleaned, the lawn was totally dead - killed by lack of watering in the summer heat, and the property in general hadn't been maintained properly in years. This house is still currently available for rent, which is why we are informing you not to use John L. Scott Property Management Services or Bobb Bates.
Bobb's modus operandii is to get a family on a short-term lease agreeement, then raise the rental amount without proper documentation or notice per the Washington State Landlord-Tenant Law. He typically does this right at lease end so that the tenant has no time to negotiate with him on the increases. This law allows a clause for the property management company or property manager responsible to give appropriate notice per the law to increase the monthly lease amount. Bobb can and will raise the montly rent rate because he realizes that if he waits, then the tenant has no wiggle room to negotiate much of anything. Such as he is the type of scumbag vermin that plagues the rental property management companies now as many landlords realize that it is a great method to scam people out of their money. Probably this happened to the previous tenants as well, but we have no way of knowing, but we did know that they were in a hurry to move out which would indicate that this is probably the case. At any rate, we're not the first ones to be screwed over by Bobb Bates.
During our stay, we had very little contact with Bobb. We contacted Bobb two weeks before our lease agreement expired and inquired about a new lease. One and a half weeks went by, with no reply from Bobb. When he did reply two days prior to our lease ending, he stated that he would increase the rent by $350 per month PLUS add a clause for rebuilding the yard (which previous tenants damaged and neglected)! In addition, he also stated that we were on the hook to pay for any pest extermination (yellowjackets, ants, and a rodent infestation in the garage). If we would have agreed to the lease on these terms, it would have amounted to an additional $1000 per month rental increase. Landlord-Tenant Law specificially states that the tenants are not responsible for paying for a lawn to be reseeded or sod installed or for a yard to be replaced - this is the sole responsiblilty of the homeowner.
We refused these new lease terms, and asked Bobb and John L. Scott Real Estate Property Management services to stay month-to-month until June so that our kids wouldn't be affected by having to move. We agreed to the rent increase, but not to the yard rebuild which was unlawful anyway. However, nothing doing - Bobb didn't agree to our terms, saying that it wasn't "personal" and that "business is business." Bobb sent a legal Notice to Vacate and we had less than one month to find a new home to lease. All the while, Bobb sent us a few nasty emails demanding we vacate the premises at the end of the month without considering that we had to move a 2600 square foot household and two children. We were very fortunate to find a new rental property to lease in time. However, being the schmuck that Bobb is, he charged us for rent on the three overage days that we had since we were unable to move during the week and had to wait until the weekend. He charged us until the following Monday when he received the keys from us. Out of a $2400 deposit, we have only received about $500 of it back.
Never mind that we have two school-age children who were very disrupted by this and had to move during the school year. Never mind that Bobb did as little as possible to serve us when we asked for maintenance - his repairman was incompetent. We scheduled his repair man on two separate occasions to come fix leaky faucets. We found out that, after the repair man completed his work, that within two hours, the faucets that he had fixed leaked again. Repair requests also took much too long - two weeks average each of the three times total that we requested repairs, and when repairs happened, they were shoddy and incomplete.
You can look for other negative reports on Bobb on the internet. Maybe you'll find some, maybe not. Bobb is a small-time, low-class vermin sucking people for their money as that is all he is interested in. Take it from us, if you do any business with Bobb, you won't be satisfied as he doesn't have the customer as his first priority. Making money unscrupulously and plying his customers with utter incompetency can and will be your experience, too, so do yourself a favor - avoid doing any business with him and go elsewhere with your real estate or property management business needs.