This company managed my rental properties in The Villages. They collected rent on my property for February, March and half of April 2009. I have received none of the rental income due me. Additionally, I've discovered that they took deposits on my property for rent in 2010 which have not been returned, and also they have not paid the security deposit to at least one of my renters this year. So folks could be impacted in three different ways:

1) non payment of rent
2) loss of deposit on future rent
3) loss of security depost
and there might be a fourth, where if any of their properties were rented already, like for June 2009, those folks may not have any inclination that there is no property for them until they arrive.

I've gone to the Villages and located their business address which is a box at a Pack and Ship store. I've further located their store front office (which they never publicized) and lastly I've located their home address. The store front and home are both vacant now. The Pack and Ship will refer you to their Registering Agent law firm. I've also spoken a couple of time to them as well.

I've filed a compaint with the Sumter County Sheriff's office (as several others have as well), as well as filed a Small Claims against them, have contacted legal console and sent certified letters of such to the owners by name, by company and by the Registering Agent of the company. Further I have spoken to the State Attorney's office about this situation.

Today I received a certified letter stating that they have closed the business "due to the global economic recession's effect on the Real Estate Market and Property Management Industry". I due not know if people in all the situations above received this letter or not. I would really like to understand this as I feel that as the property owner, I paid for everything (management fee, maintenance, advertising, cleaning, repairs, etc) except their salaries and possibly office space - for which they took 20% of the rent and they made a profit on other items charged the renters like getting thier Villages passes. So I fail to understand how they could have gone under. I hope to find out the details on this matter eventually.

Furthermore, as a property owner, I would expect them to provide the owners with the name and contact information of past renters so that possible further surprises could be avoided. - which they have not done.

So if you are involved with this company and would like to know more about that I have done and learned, I would be glad to share this with you so that you may consider taking some similar actions as well. I would ask that you contact me with your:
- name
- contact information (e-mail minimum)
- the address that you either own or rented (let me know which it is)
- any addiitonal information you want to share.

I will try and send you e-mail(s) with the information I have collected so far and updates as I get them from the Sheriff or State Attorney. I plan to provide all of the information collected to the Sheriff's office. Further if the rental property address matches, I will try and provide all renters with the contact information of the owners if I collect it so that you can consider contacting them for future rentals. (If you are an owner and don't want your contact info given out - just let me know.)

As I stated, I am simply a very upset home owner who happens to want to help others in the same situation (time permitting) because I know that many of you are out of state (I live in Florida) and have also lost money with this company.

So if you are interested, simply send me the information to [email protected] (just copy this string into your e-mail address.

Thanks.

We believe that we have been ripped off by First Village rentals in The Villages, Florida. After numerous un-returned phone calls and e-mails to our Property Manager, First Village Rentals, to request our March rent due to us (approx. $2, 500.00) that was a month and a half overdue, we realized that as of May 1st, 2009, the First Village Rentals Website disappeared and the phone number no longer answers as First Village Rentals, and our e-mails bounce back to us stating "auto-reply" with no message attached. It appears that the First Village Rentals has closed shop and absconded with many of its client’s monies. First Village Rentals had a fiduciary responsibility to its client property owners under contract to collect our rents and remit them to us, the property owners, after withholding their rightful commission. Furthermore, we entrusted our homes to them and paid monthly caretaking fees, etc. and they have abandoned our homes and will not respond to us. They have our keys and access to our properties. It appears that they are thieves and should be prosecuted. If anyone else in this situation would like to contact us we would appreciate it as we live in new Jersey and can not immediately run down to Florida. We want to report this to all responsible authorities, police station, better business bureau, division of consumer affairs, etc. The owners of First Village Rentals must be stopped from committing further frauds. Thank you.
Frank and Maryann Torre
email [email protected] and [email protected].