NEW DIMENSIONS INC-REALTORS

I answered an ad for a rental house for myself and my two school age kids listed by New Dimensions. The property manager John assured me that the owners had no financial propblems and I could expect no problems in terms of foreclosure. I signed the one year agreement and put down first months rent and a full month rent as a deposit. I moved in the end of July/first of August. The owners agreed to pay to have myself and my family paint the house and reimburse me, but when I asked for the $500.00 in paint costs, they refused, and instead gave me 5 days of "free rent". We had been in the property for exactly 18 days when the bank posted a foreclosure notice on the front door. I called the Property manager and he acted surprised and dismayed, said he would contact the owners etc and let me know what was going on. Their answer, according to the PM, was that they were trying to get a loan modification. Because of state laws, I couldn't break the lease or stop paying, so I was stuck riding the roller coaster ride with them, knowing full well, it had been at least 90 days since their last lease payment. A full 2 months before I moved in. Two weeks later, the New Dimension's maintenance man stopped by to trim bushes (as was previously agreed), and let it slip that three weeks before I moved in, he was going to trim those bushes, and the PM stopped him and told him not to come by, since the owners were going into foreclosure. The PM had known when he rented me the home that the owners were on their way to losing the property, and lied to my face. To make a long story short, I asked for continual updates on the status of the loan modification, and got no answers. The one time I tried to hold up rent to get communication, the PM filed an eviction notice and took me to court. I told the judge the situation, and was forced to pay the rent, but got the late fees waived and they had to pay the fees to start the action. Unfortunately, the PM company didn't communicate any better. 8 months into the lease, the property was scheduled for public auction on the 4th of the month. I had exactly 4 weeks to find another place to live in the same school district, since if a 3rd party bought the property, I had 7 days to vacate. Naturally, I knew the property would be sold, so I didn't pay the rent for that month. Sure enough, the property went back to the bank on that date. One day later, I got the notice for eviction for not paying the rent for a property they didn't have the legal right to collect on. I didn't bother to call the PM, but instead filed my response with the court and waited another week to go to court. In court, the judge dismissed the eviction notice, and told the PM to refund my deposit (Thank God since I wonder if I would have ever seen it had it not been ordered by the court!) The PM (John) had the nerve to ask me after our case was heard what was going to the happen with the house. He had access to the same information as me as to what the status was of the property, yet was willing to drag me into Court just to see if I would fold and pay the prior owners before we went. This company and their representative lied to get me into a property they knew the owners were not paying the mortgage on (the owners were out of California), and then lied to me that they had no idea when the foreclosure notice was filed, and then did everything they could to make sure they got money for something that wasn't being paid for. In addition, they took advantage of my painting the entire house and would not reimburse me as agreed, then took me to court 2xs as a way of blackmailing me into paying them again. I had to wonder for 7 months when we would be kicked out of the property, scramble at the last minute to find another place to live where my kids could attend the same school, and incur expenses to move (again) in less than a year. Seriously, I am not sure how this man slept every night in his bed, but he seemed to have no problem with it. After I moved out, I was told by several other property management people that this company's repretation in the industry was horrible, and that most business people in the industry would not do business with them under any circumstances. Since the property was not listed in "default" when I rented it, although they were not making the payments, I had to rely on the word of the Property Manager to make sure I wasn't going to get booted out. The fact that he lied directly to me twice and failed to tell me the truth for 8 months about what was going on still shocks me.