A plugged-in tipster reports:
Just finishing up escrow on our first condo purchase and trying to get out of…CitiApartments. This morning called them and a receptionist answered “First Apartments how can I assist you?”
First Apartments? I asked her, is this still CitiApartments? She said, “We have changed our name”
Their website is gone too. Also, due to the PGE bills not being paid in our building, they have shut off all common area electricity.
There’s nothing like a little rebranding to make all your problems go away.
Common area electricity off due to non-payment of PG&E bill? WTF This is a serious life safety issue. When is the Lembi’s total hosing of their tenants going to become a criminal issue as it actually is, instead of a civil issue?
[Editor’s Note: We’re moving the Tishman Speyer discussion to: The California Connection(s) To Tishman Speyer’s Manhattan Flop.]
As for Citi, they are shooting their banks in the foot. The tenants will simply wait for a solvent party to buy the place and then file a decrease in services petition against the new owner. The new owner will then have all these problems to deal with and will have to pay back damages from before they even bought the place and that will decrease the amount anyone will be willing to pay. The banks should step in to stop this nonsense.
BTW, this is why you do what you can to check out the owner from whom you are renting as best you can. They have always been a very sleazy operation and anyone could have discovered it before they rented and stayed far away.
I was the person who inquired about this…… Been in our building for almost 4 years. Never experienced ANY problems what so ever with Citi until they fired their on-site managers and their finances started to crumble.
Now it’s just bad. It’s a shame because it’s on a gorgeous street in Pac Heights and well you know.
Do you recommend, since i bet we won’t get our security deposit back, to not pay last month’s rent? We are moving out on the 5th of November.
I think it depends on who the interim management and new ownership is. I moved out of a formerly Lembi-owned (CitiApartments) building at 650 Church at the end of September. I was paranoid about getting my $3K+ deposit back, so I did a thorough cleaning and took lots of pictures. I was pleasantly surprised that the new management (Meridian) returned my entire deposit within a few weeks.
@timeisnow:
tricky question… your choices are 1/ apply the deposit to your last months rent at risk of your credit score should they report you, or 2/ save you credit score but risk your deposit.
no good answers, just depends on the dollar amount of the deposit and your credit score risk tolerance. are you moving our since you bought a house, and could take a ding on your credit as a result (since you already locked up your loan)?
The Chron has an article about the upstanding characters who own and run CitiApartments:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/12/BADT1BGO99.DTL
Excerpts:
“After an incident in October when 15 cars were broken into in one night, many tenants have given up. They leave their car windows open when they park in the building’s locked garage (which costs $250 a month for a space).
“A building inspector previously confirmed that ‘the fire escape and stairwell is filthy and full of feces.’ That was in October. A whiff of the air in the stairwell this week confirms that nothing has changed.”