Deadbeat commercial landlord in Ann Arbor

In Ann Arbor real estate most of the commercial landlords I've delt with are fairly on-the-ball.

They want to provide space for businesses and businesses want to rent space. Everything works out.

Obviously our office, The Home Buyer's Agent of Ann Arbor, specializes in helping home buyers, but a couple times a year we get a request from one of our past clients or someone who sees our activity on a national basis who contacts us and asks for help in leasing an office.

So, we had a client who was looking for some class A office space in a nice downtown area and we worked with a local company to negotiate a lease and they asked for our compensation to be paid when the tenant moves in. (We are normally paid at signing of the lease, because that is when the tenant leaves the deposit, but in this case we were OK waiting to the point of occupancy.)

So the tenant occupied the building at the end of February and we didn't hear anything from the landlord.

I called about four times to both the leasing agent and the broker, and my attorney also called over the following four weeks. No response.

The poor secretary ended up covering for the deadbeat broker, each time saying he would call back. But he never did.

So we went ahead and engaged an attorney to prepare papers for court.

As I was visiting the attorney's office to sign the papers for a summons and complaint, the attorney asked if I wanted to have him make one last call. I did so he did, and he actually got the leasing agent to answer the phone. She gave all kinds of excuses and eventually offered to pay us half the compensation then and the other half on June 16th.

Well June 16th has come and gone. I made a call to the office and the secretary acted surprised, like she had no idea that they had agreed to pay us.

So, this deadbeat ann arbor landlord burns up my time and energy trying to get paid. Thanks deadbeat!

More to come...