…because they offer the same consulting service.
We were contacted by one of our property manager referral partners about obtaining an FHA condominium project approval for the condominium in which he lives. Over the past 5 years, we have facilitated dozens of approvals for him and the company for which he works.
Of course we told Thomas that we would be happy to handle the approval for his condominium. As standard procedure, we forwarded a copy of our prequalification questionnaire to him to complete or have completed. The questionnaire rules out or brings to light the vast majority of reasons why condominiums are rejected by FHA.
Two weeks later, we followed up with him regarding the questionnaire and he told us that we need to contact the property manager for the condominium. No problem. We don’t know the manager and she doesn’t work for Thomas’ company so this could potentially be a new source of business.
When we did, we were informed that her management company offers to facilitate FHA approvals as well and the Board has not decided to move forward with the approval. She said that she would not complete the questionnaire and that we would need to speak with Thomas about it.
Certainly, our goal is not to compete with their management company or to come between them. We often help managers who try to get condominiums approved with FHA and get stuck during the process. We told Thomas to please let us know if there is anything that we can do to help.
Fast forward a month and yesterday we check in with Thomas about the status. Thomas writes that the management company is refusing to provide any assistance in the FHA approval process because they will not be the provider of this service. The manager wrote to Thomas “It would be up to the board to get the pre-qualification paperwork to this new vendor as this service is above and beyond our regular management contract.”
We ran across a similar scenario last year with a 130-unit condominium in Maryland. The manager provides the same service that we do but the Board wanted to use us because it is our specialty. The manager said that he would not cooperate. The end result was the condominium found a new manager.
Is this manager fulfilling her duties as a property manager if she is not doing what’s in the best interest of the association? We are very curious to hear from Thomas how he feels about this manager’s stance, seeing as how Thomas is a manager himself.
Top Photo Credit: (c) Can Stock Photo / gstockstudio
Why should a manager provide service outside their specified scope of work? They should not. Presumably you are paying “Thomas” but you don’t want to compensate the manager for their extra work above and beyond their contract. Your board sounds as though they don’t value their community managers nor respect their time. It was a lucky thing the manager left your employment as I bet you were always trying to get a few extras like calling on the weekends for non emergency matters and asking the manager to stay late to accommodate your schedule.