kayla

Review of Pierce Education Properties-Th...

Last year I moved to East Lansing, from out of sta...

Last year I moved to East Lansing, from out of state for school. I stayed in a 3 bed 3 bath at The Village. While having a fully furnished apartment with certain utilities provided was nice, the property management, both West Pac and now Peak Campus, have not been communicating with residents properly.

In my situation, I lived in a 3 bed 3 bath with one roommate. I paid a $250 lockout fee for the third bedroom because I did not want an additional roommate and neither did my roommate at that time. We originally thought that we would be staying in a 2 bed 2 bath at Chandler Crossings, leased through West Pac Management, but we were misled and ended up with a 3 bed 3 bath instead.

There was a change in management towards the end of last school year and Peak Campus Management took over.

After moving out in May I was able to find a subleaser who would stay for the remainder of the leased term. My lease was assigned to the subleaser and I paid the additional requested fees to transfer the lease from myself to the subleaser. Now the lease agreement itself says that The Village will only accommodate assignments of leases and not subleases themselves, the difference being that an assignment of a lease is one in which rights and responsibilities under the assignment of a lease transfer to the person being assigned the apartment (aka the subleaser). However, like I said before, my roommate and I agreed to a 3 bed 3 bath, after West Pac told us they no longer had any 2 bed 2 bath apartments (by the time we found out that information it was too late to find another place to live for the school year).

With that being said, Peak Campus charged a cleaning fee" associated with the common area of the apartment after all tenants left. This bill was sent to me the beginning of September because my email address was on the account according to one of the staff members at the property. When I asked my former roommate if she received a bill specifically about her unit in the apartment pertaining to the common area cleaning fee, she said she had not.

The cleaning fee ($8.33) was attached only to the one unit no one ever occupied, but was sent to me, because although I assigned my rights to a subleaser, I was still responsible for the 3rd bedroom's fee associated with cleaning the common area since that particular unit was not assigned to my subleaser. I found myself questioning why only the one unit no one stayed in was actually charged for the common area cleaning if all three units are supposed to be responsible for taking care of the common area, per the lease agreement?

I say all this to give a very transparent review about this property and the management company involved.

Not everything about the village is bad, the bus stop to school was pretty close to my apartment which was a convenience that I appreciated.

I just want to make sure others are aware, especially those from out of state like me.

Also, it would be better if management told tenants upfront that there is a possibility of being charged in these situations even after your assign your lease to someone else.

Wherever you stay always read through your lease and get things in writing to make sure you have a full understanding of what you are and are not responsible for.

In addition, I asked for a receipt after sending a check for the cleaning fee. I was assured that an email would be sent to me with a receipt confirming my payment. The check was cashed on September 16th. It is now September 20th and I have not received a receipt. I have contacted them to follow up and a staff member told me that I would receive an email from the account manager. I have yet to receive this email which I specifically requested when I first went to settle the account more than a week ago.