Here is one such property that is managed by Westlake Associates... will this one take your rent money and spend it at the bingo hall or on cut-rate beer?
This consumer protection matter first came to our attention almost two years ago, and we looked in to the matter, but the central complainant reached a solution with property management and requested we let the matter go. Now, years later, it’s come back to the forefront and all our original sources are as eager to tell their story now as ever before. Bottom line is that Lynnwood Country Club Apartments managed by Westlake Associates in Seattle steals rent from their tenants and has no problem being nasty about it.
It started when Tina, a disabled mother with small children, learned that she was behind on her rent in late 2003. She was up against a wall, and even though she asserts that she’d always paid her rent, she had to come up with $1,100 or move out that week. She found the money, since she only had her own log of payments, rather than all the receipts needed. From there out she vowed to be more diligent with her record keeping.
Just six months later she was told she had fallen a full month behind on the rent again, which is, in her words, “impossible”, and her accounting of it seems to be in step with her claim. Despite three attempts in writing to request a reconciliation of rent payments, none was ever provided, but it was on the fourth of July 2004 that things boiled over. The landlady, Connie Sabo, approached Tina's boyfriend, admitted she’d been drinking, and told him that Tina should get her tubes tied.
Though GlossyNews.com primarily publishes humor, entertainment news, satire and product or event reviews, we engage from time to time with matters of consumer protection. This article is not entertaining, but no less warrants serious attention.
Her boyfriend found this so offensive he contacted John Downing, the manager at Westlake Associates responsible for the property above the site manager. The long and short of it was, if she agreed not to take legal action, he would create a new lease with a “free month of rent” to cover the missing rent she had paid. Her choice was to accept that offer or be evicted with collections to recover the rents she had proof of already paying.
Naturally, she accepted the deal, but that wasn’t the end of it.
The matter came down in July of 2003, and Connie Sabo was required to issue the renewed lease to Tina, but failed to do it until September. The apartments were old and in poor condition, and two of Tina’s three children suffered repeated hospitalizations due to mold aspiration, so she decided she had to move. In August of 2005 she gave due notice, moved out, left the apartment spotless, gave her new address and turned in her keys. End of story, or so you’d think, but this news story is only half done.
This wide image, taken for use under the fair license laws, depicts many iconic Seattle images... none of them, however, are managed by westlake properties. Hell, none of them are even within miles of Westlake Properties, not even in terms of service, quality, integrity OR geography.
Last month Tina was contacted by Angie at Rent Collect to recover $821 plus interest accruing at 12% retroactively. This was suspicious to Tina, but here’s the break down:
One month’s rent, even though there had never been a missed month of rent, even though the apartment was unsafe and uninhabitable, even though appropriate notice was given, even though that second lease began a month later than it was supposed to.
A cleaning charge, even though the original lease included a non-refundable “cleaning fee” to cover exactly this sort of situation, even though the apartment was left cleaner than received, even though the landlady refused to partake of a move-out inspection, just as she had refused to partake of the move-in inspection.
An unreturned key fee, even though the keys were returned.
A $50 "late fee" charged for the month of rent that was never due.
Many months interest at 12%, even though no previous attempt had been made to contact her. They had the contact information, it’s the same they used to reach her for collections.
It would be easy to cry sour grapes if it was just one tenant in question who arguably did not pay her rent, but as the original file on this matter showed two years ago, the theft of rent by the complex was widespread.
Sandra, another tenant in the building said in an interview in 2003 that she had also paid a month’s rent in cash. As Sandra explained, “Connie said she didn’t have her receipt book handy [and that] she’d drop it by later… two months later we got an eviction notice for not paying the rent even though we had.”
Sandra’s brother-in-law, who also lived in the complex, alleged he had suffered two such months of missing rent, as well as a break-in to his apartment through the front door by someone using a key. He was a single man at the time, the only people with keys to his apartment was himself and the management. No charges were filed in this case, but it’s a matter he still feels very strongly about even today.
Then there was the statements made by Ed, another tenant in the apartments. He told us that “[Connie Sabo] tried to not give me receipts on my cash payments before, but I told her she’d have to wait to get it until she gave [the receipt to me].” Clearly, he was also afraid that rents would disappear.
Out of the seven tenants who would agree to an interview, three of them asserted that cash payments of rent had gone missing. In 2003, when Tina asked us not to run this article after all, we presented our findings instead to John Downing, the manager responsible for Connie’s on-site behavior. He insisted that no such things were possible, but immediately instituted a “check payment only” policy and installed a second off-site manager to oversee Connie’s activities.
To this day, Connie is still in place as the property manager, and one can only hope that she is no longer making drunken statements pertaining to others’ uteruses, and that she’s now no longer able to appropriate rents to her her personal pocketbook. No compensation has ever been offered to any of these tenants for their ostensibly illegally-mandated surplus rent payments, and no apology has ever been made for the grief caused by threatening tenants with homelessness, despite what records they may have, despite the glut of probable doubt that exists.
And while John Downing is the only authority on the other side of this debate, several attempts to reach him for comment over a two week period were unsuccessful. He has a better idea what’s really going on here, so if you see him, be sure to ask him about it.
Tina had agreed not to make an issue of the theft and personal affronts she had suffered, but that was under the understanding that she would be granted a continuation of her tenancy. Now that chapter is closed but their desire to milk a few more pennies out of her is not. Unless some steps are taken to right this wrong, the only advice we can offer is to avoid doing business with Connie Sabo, John Downing, Jeanette Maxfield, Westlake Associates and Lynnwood Country Club Apartments. You don’t have to take that advice, but the advice you simply have to heed is the necessary exercise of extraordinary caution in any attempts to do business with them.
