This complaint is about Metropolis, a company that performs property management of condos in suburban Maryland. This company is based in Hyattsville, MD and their address is
4307 Gallatin Street
Hyattsville, MD 20781

This company was hired by the Monterey Condominium Association president after she fired the previous company. I was a Unit Owner in that community. This company Metropolis first took a long time to take over from the previous company, it left all of the unit owner uncertain about payments, and we had to call. The phone call was ALWAYS answered by a phone answering service in Alabama DURING BUSINESS HOURS and they always were quick to state that they only answered the phone for this company, nothing else. When messages were conveyed to Metropolis via this answering service, Metropolis had a policy of answering these phone calls within 3 BUSINESS DAYS (!!!). But a lot of the time, phone calls were not even returned. When finally pressed about why do they have
this answering company in Alabama they said there had been a bad storm that knocked their telephone lines. They kept saying this excuse for almost a year, until finally they had somebody from Maryland answer the phone.

As far as services to the community, the only thing they did was do the paperwork and barely answer the phones. This left the President of the Association (Monterey Condominiums), a very corrupt lady who was breaking the condo community rules by having 5 pets, two of them large roaming around the premises, to do whatever she pleased without no one to answer to. The community rules were that a maximum of 2 pets was allowed, and these would have to be small pets, no more than 20 lbs. The two dogs were more like 60 lbs and ran unleashed all the time. This person would use our common area as a holding pen for her animals. I basically could not use my patio in peace because of these animals. I
complained to her, and to other neighbors who also had their large animals there, as this was getting out of control, but to no avail. This lady told me that if I did not like her animals I did not have to
get out onto my patio. Period. I then wrote letters to Metropolis, but never got a reply. I got a second letter, and there was no reply. I did not get a reply. Period. I went to Montgomery County Animal
Control and they issued a ticket to this lady, which she contested. When we got to trial, the state lawyer, a very bad one, could not win the case even though i had pictures and a witness. He let the lady lie and say these were not her animals. As Animal Control did not do their job right by correctly ID these animals when they could, the case was thrown out. Animal Control officers could not ID the dogs on the pictures. Talk about waste of tax payers money.

I then decided to leave the community as every attempt to try to live in peace was thwarted and there seemed to be nothing I could do. Little did I know that problems would continue as I was selling my unit. The Association also had gotten into a problem because the Board of Directors had not paid a contractor their dues and these were suing for their money. Metropolis was slow to issue the Resale Certificate and did not contain the needed information about this lawsuit. When pressed, they reissued the resale certificate but only added to see "Reference A", which they did not include. Another barrage of phone calls finally produce this "Reference A". Thank God I had a wonderful real estate agent and she was an inmense help in dealing with these people, as well as the settlement company. I finally was able to sell that property and get out of that nightmare.

However, the nightmare does not end there. Metropolis, ever so incompentent, still is trying to charge me its condo fees. I sold my unit on April 28th, and they are trying to charge me June fees. This is
incredible. I sent a letter pointing out that I sold my place and to refer this payments to the new owner, but I still keep getting these bills. We even paid transfer fees to Metropolis, the settlement company
gave them a check for May on behalf of the current owner, and still these people assume I am the owner. This is even so I had a case with the CCOC (Common Ownership Communities) against the Association (about the infringement of pet rules and their ignoring of my letters) which was thrown out as moot because the Association argued I was no longer a unit owner.

So this is my plight, after having lost in every instance of my complaints due to technicalities, and finally thinking about having some peace (away from that hell hole), I am still getting crazy bills from
Metropolis.

I would comment you never, ever do any business with Metropolis. This is a company that is totally unprofessional, holds grudges, will be unbelievably incompetent and will bill you for crazy things.

Antonio