Interactive Worldwide Mission Valley

I found a house on their website. Loved it, applied for it and paid for the screening fee. Ended up getting approved for it and was waiting for the owners consent. So I put a holding deposit down and signed a document. A week later, a lease was sent to me. I signed it and went to go pay rent today and pick up my keys, which after paying they rent, they notified me, the owner no longer wants to rent to me after all. Now, according to their website to home owners looking to rent:



The Equity Company has a real estate attorney on staff so that we can provide the most comprehensive residential lease agreements that are created especially for landlords in California. Do not expose yourself to unnecessary liability by not knowing the law or by not providing those legal disclosures that are now mandatory in California. We will draft the lease agreement to meet your specific requirements, handle all tenant screenings - credit reports, written employment verifications, and previous landlord verifications in which you will receive copies of all for just $295.00. You also get your property listing with up to 8 pictures advertised on our website.



This means my lease was looked over by a lawyer and could not have been written without specific requirements from the owner itself. How is it possible my lease was drawn up legally with the owners consent in which case I agreed to it and signed it and now it is no longer a binding agreement because the owner changed his mind?? It's UNLAWFUL.



Secondly, Andy, the owner of the business wrote me an email after I had paid rent and called to ask when I would be receiving my keys stating: "The owner has decided to no longer consider you as a tenant for his property." Not as a POTENTIAL tenant but AS A tenant. That means I had a lease and a binding contract.



Now what I'm personally thinking is if Andy was on top of his business, he would have realized someone drafted my lease without the owners consent, signed it and now Andy, who I have never deal with to all my prior transactions regarding this house has now stepped in to rectify his companies mistakes. And I am supposed to accept the fact that I am out a bunch of fees I will no longer recoup based on their mistake. Why accept me as a tenant, offer me a lease, take my money, and the day of, tell me take-sies back-sies?? It's unprofessional and their actions were unlawful. And I would know coming from a family of lawyers as we build our case to report them.



So my advice is, don't do business with them. They waste your time for weeks and don't compensate you for it and want to waste more of your time and effort by then advising you to get a lawyer as they no longer want to deal with you. That's poor management skills. On top of it all, I am now homeless . . .

I had an awful experience with The Equity Company. I imagine they read every book on customer service and pledged to do the exact opposite. If you call you will get a voice mail no matter who is in the office, no matter how big of a problem you have it���s not a big problem to them��� they will call you back on their terms. Employees of the company are tremendously inept and lack basic communication skills. Upon moving out I was contacted on three separate occasions to be asked the same EXACT question, ���what number is your mailbox and parking space?��� No matter how many times I answered this question it was like a whole new world to them the next day. Even after I moved out of the condo I was contacted on four other occasions because the new tenant needed information about moving in and YET AGAIN I was asked about the mailbox. On top of all this they still waited 25 days to refund the deposit (the refund must be returned within 21 days by law), and to my astonishment they were too incompetent to contact anyone as to whether we paid a move out fee to the HOA. They decided to simply charge the fee without authorization or authority. When they were contacted they had the audacity to laugh at the situation and hang up the phone! Later they called back in a whole new tone of voice to say that we paid the fee already and they actually double charged us (we could have told them that a month ago had they bothered calling). Save yourself the headache and go anywhere else��� hell rent from a hobo across the street, at least he will answer the phone.

We had the unfortunate situation of being a customer of The Equity Company, via the owner of the condo we were renting. Besides having poor customer service, the in-competency of this management company is comical. Not only did they take more than 21 days to return our security deposit, despite state law, they were too inept to request an up-to-date account status from the condo's HOA, in turn double charging us for a move-out fee. And think again if you ever want to speak to a live person. Thank goodness we own our condo now. This just reiterates why we'll NEVER rent again!