Ron Kellington

Review of FirstService Residential BC

July 20, 2018: ( Update #3 ) It's time to move o...

July 20, 2018: ( Update #3 ) It's time to move on. After attending the annual AGM a couple of weeks ago I realized that this community is in a lot of trouble. The homes are great but the management company is really really bad. At our AGM, the interim manager DAVE admitted that he was involved in over 100 budgets over the years that included line items on the Operational side that should have been on the Contingency Reserve Side. He was OK with 'we need to get things done' at the expense of doing things properly ...contrary to the Strata Property Act. In other words he was OK with putting in 'work' that happens less than once a year into the Operational side without details. Would you want to give a brand new unskilled Strata Council $100000 to just spend away without approval of the Owners. Every expense out of the Contingency Reserve Fund needs approval from the Owners... so ... unfortunately FSR has got some deep ethical problems. The worst thing is our Strata Council does NOT know that FSR is skimming money off the interest paid on our various Trust Funds and keeping it to themselves.
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April 17, 2018: (UPDATE #2) It's been 6 months since my last review & nothing (zero) has improved. In fact, I don't have any hope for FSR & our Strata Corporation. I think if we had a new ...different...decent Strata Manager some of the on-going unresolved issues could get dealt with....but I wouldn t bet on it. I've never dealt with any kind of Service company who refuses to communicate with the Owners. Steven Loo does not return calls; his preparation of Council minutes are inaccurate; I don't trust them managing our money...constantly catching mistakes....vague financial reporting. I could go on & on with negative stories and honestly can say that there is NOTHING (zero) positive that we have experienced with this company and esp. our current manager. It is so bad... Please look elsewhere... all those resources they say they provide are BS... try and talk to someone or get help after-hours: IMPOSSIBLE... Their new 'owner's' website is useless... How they stay in business amazes me. I hope our new Council moves to dump them!!!
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OCTOBER 2017: This is an 'edit' (UPDATE) to my earlier review. Please read what I said below because to this day NOTHING HAS CHANGED! ... which translated means: It's still as bad (maybe worse) than it was a year ago. Our property manager, Steven Loo, still ignores you... and FSR's response to me for documentation that was to be provided to us by the developers of our complex at the first AGM was for me to chase them down myself. They sold themselves to me as a company deep in resources who would be able to look after things like this. Devon, the girl who first attempted to get the drawings and manuals and warranties etc from Quadra Homes/ Reddale started ignoring me after 3 or 4 months. It's a shame they're such a BAD BAD company.
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Here is my first review:
I was primarily responsible for hiring FSR a year and a half ago and today I am very disappointed with them. I would not recommend them unless you were lucky enough to get a good property manager. It turns out that Steven Loo, who manages our townhouse complex in Langley, is a nice guy but he's a lousy property manager. This company will say they will do things and they don't do it. They give bad advice to the Strata Council.. so bad that we filed a CRT (Civil Resolution Tribunal) action against our Strata council... we can't get at FSR directly because ultimately it's the strata council who is responsible for everything...including discerning wrong and illegal advice. I have been asking for some 'things' for over a year and to this date I'm sure it's all on the back burner somewhere...forgotten, Their MO is to ignore you and hope time makes you so frustrated that you give up. ALSO ... they're lousy communicators. It's extremely unfortunate as I had high hopes for this company when we hired them mid 2016. There are better companies out there.