We lived in a lovely building owned by a very atte...

We lived in a lovely building owned by a very attentive if sometimes intense landlord, but things were good. We were on this soon to be illegal self-terminating lease but the landlord always kept to the maximum legal rent increase each year, he only used the self terminating lease to get rid of disruptive tenants. Devon took over the building and everything changed. New tenants were not as well screened leading to the building quickly becoming noisy. Everyone's rents went up at least $150, normally illegal, but Devon was happy to abuse the move-out clause loophole. They even had the nerve to send a letter to everyone saying they are "only" raising rents by $150 a month while they legally could do much more, so we should be thankful they're so nice. The next year rents went up by another $100. Rules became less and less enforced, a building that was previously full of quiet long term tenants began to see huge turn-over. When we finally decided to move after yet another $100 a month increase we had to break our lease only 1 month early after years of tenancy. A new tenant was found the day after we gave our notice, only a single showing was needed and no ads put out, and he was paying $100 more than us. We had the unit professionally cleaned and there was no damage. Devon then wanted to charge us $500 for all the "admin work" and "hardship" for having to find a new tenant. Talking with other landlords and managers in Victoria they all told me this amount was way too high, so we disputed it. It was a final insult to us, that after jumping through every one of those hoops, paying increase after increase year after year netting them thousands of extra dollars, they would not budge over this unreasonable $500 fee. Looks like we will be going to arbitration over this, I don't care if we win or lose, someone has to stand up to these abusive crooks. I can't believe how petty and greedy Devon properties is. If they take over your building, start looking for a new place to live and assume they will abuse every loop hole and twist every rule to screw you over at every turn.

What I will add though that the actual front line humans we dealt with at devon were extremely nice, but they don't make policy, they have no power and can't help you no matter how nice they are.