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Kuester Management Group Reviews - $9000 we've paid so far in "management fees" was a waste of money
13K views
Dec 5, 2023
Kuester Management Group review: "... they made mistakes regarding my landscaping that cost me about $1,600.00. Then they broke a promise that was made to me prior to buying the property - to clean up the dump across the street. When I called them on it 2 years later, they told me to sue the builder (their business partner)..." Read the full Kuester Management Group review on PissedConsumer: https://kuester-management-group.pissedconsumer.com/review.html #KuesterManagementGroup #HOA #OnlineReviews #CommunityManagement #PissedConsumer If you are a company representative and would like to get in touch with this consumer in order to resolve the issue, please let us know: https://www.pissedconsumer.com/contact/business-inquiry.html If you are a pissed consumer and would like to create a similar video and try to resolve your issue, please let us know: https://www.pissedconsumer.com/contact/media-inquiry.html Support Pissed Consumer video interview project: https://www.pissedconsumer.com/donate.html 🔔Subscribe for more Pissed Consumer Interviews: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfq6TOynfxSdCR_LiMIScHKOeokTVJgty Subscribe to Pissed Consumer social media accounts: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PissedConsumerCom/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pissedconsumer/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/pissedconsumer
View Video Transcript
0:00
Hi, I'm Mike. I want to talk to you about Kuster Management Company
0:07
They are a community management company that takes care of like HOAs in communities such as the one I live in
0:16
I'm talking to you because I would like to help other people avoid the situation that I'm in
0:24
which is to say that we have a property management company that really isn't that interested in the community other than they seem to want to take our money as much as possible
0:33
But as far as cleanup and maintenance and management and actually keeping it, you know, according to them
0:40
is part of their mandate is to like keep the property values up and keep everything clean
0:45
I'm not seeing any real sign of that. I'm just seeing signs of a company that wants to be predatory and take money from people through fines and fees
0:53
And so hopefully this interview will shed some light on this company and maybe make you think twice about doing business with them
1:08
Well, first, let me start off by saying I want to stress I do not have any evidence that they have done anything illegal
1:16
I don't think they're con artists. I don't think that they're deliberately breaking the law. At
1:23
least I have no evidence to suggest that. What I will say is that they, you know, for a community
1:31
management company, they don't seem that invested in the community. They seem more invested in saving
1:37
money and making money off the community through fines and fees and whatever else than actually
1:43
you know supporting the community um they've also made many um mistakes and miscommunications
1:53
and oops and whatever else and yeah maybe they were legitimate mistakes maybe they weren't you
2:00
know maybe i'm willing to go along with that but they all these mistakes adversely affected me
2:06
and other homeowners it's like yeah they might be mistakes but they're you know they're adversely
2:13
affecting us. So you got to stop making these mistakes. So by way of example of those two
2:21
you know, those two things, my two complaints are one, they don't seem very invested in the
2:25
community. And two, they make a lot of mistakes that adversely affect us. Examples of that first
2:32
complaint, them being a little bit cheap. Well, for instance, I was told when I moved
2:40
when I was looking at the property, there's this drainage area across the street. And I asked them
2:46
well, they're going to clean that up, right? Because it kind of looks right now like a waste
2:50
treatment plant. And they said, oh, yeah, no, they're going to plant some shrubs. It'll be nice
2:55
But they didn't. And now they don't consider themselves responsible for it. When I brought
2:59
it up at our last homeowners meeting, they said I should sue the builder. That was their advice
3:05
like that's helpful um and meanwhile this is common ground it is you know it is part of the
3:11
property it is the hoa responsibility to take care of it they just don want to do it um they playing it cheap they also um that same drainage pit has sharp rocks it has hornet nests it has snakes it has i mean there a lot
3:28
it's dangerous and there's a lot of little kids living on the street but when i asked them hey
3:32
what about putting a fence around it they said no no no because um the county does not require a
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fence unless the depth of the of the pit and the angle is at a certain you know um i don't know
3:48
well i guess you know if it's a certain steepness for want of a better word yeah but there's kids
3:53
playing in there there's rocks there's hornets there's snakes so you really need to put a fence
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around there regardless of the you know but they don't want to do that that costs money so i've
4:03
been repeat renewing my request over and over again to have them put the fence there and to
4:07
have them clean it up. As I pointed out to them in the last renewal, because they keep writing me
4:12
back saying, why do you keep renewing this? We're going to keep denying it. I said, well, because even though you might not be breaking the law in Mecklenburg County
4:19
sooner or later, a kid's going to get hurt and you're going to be, you know, you're going to be
4:24
in a civil suit. And I promise you, when the jury sees 25 requests for you guys to put a fence around
4:29
that, that you ignored, they're not going to be too happy with you. So let's see how it plays out
4:34
Anyways, I'm waiting to see how they respond to that one. But that was just one example
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I mean, yesterday, so we have like a big tree stump, a dead tree
4:44
It used to be much taller and dead. They cut off the top part of it
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And now there's just this ugly, like 15 foot tall dead stump on the corner
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And I asked them just yesterday, hey, you know, let's, I put in a request
4:59
Let's cut that down. They're claiming they can't because it's a tree safe zone and it's a safety violation to cut down this dead tree
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So I said, well, I don't believe that. I think you just don't want to cut it down because it costs money to get rid of it
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They said, no, no, it's it's it's we were told we can't do it. So I called up the forestry department
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I called up their representative who said, absolutely. They said it was OK to cut down that tree
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So they lied to me. They basically lie just to not have to cut down a tree, you know, whatever
5:31
I mean, it's just tons of little things like that. They claim, like, landscaping
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They have certain requirements, I guess, for, like, what kind of mulch you use
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Only none of that's listed. So I put in a request, you know, here's what I want to do with my land
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And I want to put pond pebbles. I want to put little rocks. I like those better
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I think mulch attracts animals. It attracts snakes. It attracts cats, I've discovered
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They use it as a litter box. And they said, no, palm rocks are not acceptable
6:04
So I asked them why. And they said, palm rocks are not acceptable. So I asked them why again
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They wrote back, they just keep sending me the same response. Palm rocks are not acceptable
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My neighbor had them and then had to get rid of them. And I asked them why. And they said, oh, they think the color didn't match because they got white
6:18
So I said, okay, I'll get ones that match, that match and look nice
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And so I did that. And then they sent me another letter saying pot and pebbles are not allowed
6:29
So I called the meeting and they said well it right in black and white in our guidelines except that it isn And I pointed that out to them and they said oh we have to get back to you Then they sent me a letter absolving me and saying I didn need to do anything I said great Okay That fair You know it wasn in the guidelines And then like a month later
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they sent me another letter saying, Oh, that last letter was a typo. You've got 90 days to fix it
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Like, wow. Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Um, little, it's just a ton of stuff like that. And meanwhile
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you know, like we have no representation on the board on our street because I ran to be on board
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I put my name on the ballot, but it was accidentally left off the ballot
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So now our board is run by people who don't have to look at the drainage pit across the street
7:13
They don't have to do this stuff. There's people who are violating some of the terms
7:19
Like, you're not supposed to put like ugly stuff in your yard. But I noticed that one of my neighbors is down the street is like has this really like bright red porch
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Why is he allowed to do it? Well, he's on the board. You know, I don't know what they're about, but it's just tons of little things like that
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These. This back and forth, this constant and, you know, the big thing that bothers me
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So one of the things they do is they put that violation that I had to Pond Rocks and I took care of it immediately
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I paid tons of money, but I got the Pond Rocks taken away
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I got the mulch they wanted to put back in. But I noticed they didn't close my violation
8:00
And so as it turns out, I had a dentist appointment a couple of weeks ago
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And while they were working on my mouth and I couldn't talk, the dentist was complaining about her homeowners association sending her a letter threatening her to put a lien on her property because she owes $800 in fees and fines for not mowing her lawn, which she said she did
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They sent her a violation. And it turns out, yeah, she has Custer management, too, I discovered
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They sent her a notice of violation, so she took care of it. But because you have to go online and where the violation is listed, you're supposed to send pictures and respond and do all this stuff
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But we have no way on our end of closing it. So they never closed her violation
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So even though she mowed her lawn two days after they asked her to, six months later, they hit her up with late fees and fines
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And we're going to put a lien on your property because you didn't take care of this
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These guys clearly are a little bit predatory. they're looking for like to get you they're looking to find and bring in money and do that
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kind of thing so when i saw that my violation wasn't closed i put in a comment hey i fixed
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this i sent you pictures close this violation and they didn't so a week later i sent it again hey
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i sent you pictures i did everything i was told to do you need to close this violation
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and they ignored it so finally since we can um put in like um put in notices of violations like
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If we see our neighbors violating the rules, we can. I put in a violation that they hadn't closed my violation
9:33
And that finally got them to do it. Just constantly complaining. It seems to be the only way to do stuff
9:41
Like I said, I had to contact the Forestry Service myself. I have to contact, you know, it's like you have to just keep continually complaining
9:51
I must have put in 15 requests for stuff to be done that are still being ignored And like I said I mean they tell me to sue the builder So like I said I don think they doing anything illegal I think
10:04
they're just a bit predatory. I think they don't really care about the community as much as they
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want to pull in as much money as they can from the community. And I would strongly advise anybody
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who is considering buying a property that is managed by Qster to reconsider. Because at this
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point you know i don't know what they're going to do we we had had plans to uh build a like an
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outdoor kitchen kind of thing like a patio and we even went as far as to lay the concrete down
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but i'm afraid to take it further because even if they approve the request to do the work it
10:37
might change their mind they have the right to do that that's the beauty of it that's how they got
10:40
away with the thing with the palm pebbles because there's a little codicil in their agreement that
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we all have to sign to live here that says that even if the item in you know under under
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discussion, an item of contention is not listed, they have the right to do it anyway. It doesn't
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have to be written down according to their rules. It's just their rules. So they have the support
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address, support accuser management, which you can write to, and maybe they'll write you back
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Generally, you can open a work order request on their website. They generally respond with
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thank you for submitting this work order request. And then if you, you know, it's a form letter
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If you read all the way to the bottom, it says, by the way, this is now closed. And if you want to reopen it, you have to respond to this email
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So I respond and say, yeah, nice try. You can try to call them, but if you're a homeowner, you will not get a person
11:34
I have never gotten a person to answer. What they do is they put you on hold for up to five minutes
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And then they say, if you don't want to wait on hold, press four. And you can leave a message
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So if you do that, all it does is it resets the five-minute clock. and keeps you on hold
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So there's really no way to contact them. Now, what I did was I spent some time the other day experimenting around
11:58
and it turns out if you hit a certain progression of keys, you can force them to bring you into voicemail
12:05
So that's what I've been doing. I've been leaving messages saying, sorry, you're not going to get rid of me
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You're ignoring me. Is it going to work? I'm just going to keep submitting these requests, and you guys are going to have to respond eventually
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and that's all I can do because I have no power to do anything else. Obviously, I can't sue them
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They're a national company and, you know, all legal battles are battles of attrition. I can't
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keep up with them. I can't sue the builder. I don't, I'm even afraid to build the thing in my
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backyard because if they decide, hey, you know what, it's a quarter inch shorter than we thought it would be. You need to tear it down or we're going to charge you a hundred dollars a day until
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you do. You know, I don't trust them anymore. They're not trustworthy. They're obviously in it
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just to milk as much money out of the community as they can
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They play it cheap at every place they can. They make mistakes, mistakes quite often
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And that's why I'm making this video. That's why I put reviews
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I would really like to save other people from having to deal with what we have to deal with
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We're afraid to do anything now. We're just waiting for the five years to be up
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so we can move
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