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Contract Breach, fraud?

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Intranet

Junior Member
This case is in Georgia.

My family owns a home in Atlanta, and had a contract with a management company to fix maintenance problems, get the paperwork done, and to rent it out. The previous tenant renting the home left in April, and left $1800 in an account - we allowed the company to use the money to be used for the maintenance of the house. The house management company first made a huge variety of charges which used up the $1800 fund.(we think some may be bogus charges - we had to evict a tenant and there was a $250 eviction fee, a $260 Dispossessory Fee, and a $454 'Turn Around'Fee), They billed us an additional $700.

The company also told us the house was ready to rent out and already on the market in May or June. However, they contacted us 6 weeks later and told us there was additional problems and that the house wasn't actually ready to rent, and they needed us to do more paperwork. We confronted them on their earlier statement, but they claimed no wrongdoing - we believe they fabricated emails to cover up their mistake. They sent us edited/forged emails that seemingly stated they asked us to do more paperwork back in June. They had been charging us management fees every month as well.

My questions are:
1. Is there any legal claim here?
2. Is their fabrication of emails considered fraud?
3. Can we recover the charges that seem bogus or recover lost revenue?
4. There isn't that much money involved, only $1800 + $700 charge + maybe 6 weeks of lost revenue from the house...is it even worth it to settle this with an attorney? I know litigation is very cost prohibitive....


Thanks a lot
 


Intranet

Junior Member
If you do not trust them, get another management company.
Of course, that is obvious. But we are bound by the contract till September.

1. Is not using best efforts/reasonable efforts a breach of K?
2. Is screwing up considered not using reasonable efforts and thus a breach of K?
3. Is their editing/forging emails considered fraud?
 

OHRoadwarrior

Senior Member
1. Is not using best efforts/reasonable efforts a breach of K?
You have not indicated other than opinion this happened.
2. Is screwing up considered not using reasonable efforts and thus a breach of K?
You have not proven they screwed up. There could have been a latent maintenance issue.
3. Is their editing/forging emails considered fraud?
You said you believe this happened. You have no proof.
 

Intranet

Junior Member
You have not indicated other than opinion this happened.

You have not proven they screwed up. There could have been a latent maintenance issue.

You said you believe this happened. You have no proof.
They screwed up because they said the house was fine but it wasn't - doesn't that count? They actually said (we have proof) that the house was on the market and ready to rent out...they then contacted us 6 weeks later and told us the house wasn't actually ready to rent out and there was more problems. They either lied to us or they screwed up. That's 6 weeks of them sitting there doing nothing and collecting management fees and charging us maintenance fees and we get zero rental revenue.

As for proof, they sent us emails stating they informed us earlier with earlier emails. They then forwarded us the supposed emails they sent us - but the emails themselves were edited because the position of the dates and names were out of order. Is this enough proof for fraud?
 

OHRoadwarrior

Senior Member
You have not clarified any background information to substantiate they screwed up. What was not fine? How did they discover it? Why didn't they discover it initially?
 

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