Apparently, Apex Property Management and Anchor Bank are in a dispute, and their tenants are caught in the middle. To make matters more complicated, they have signed a confidentiality agreement and neither side can really talk. And here at the Tenant Resource Center, we’re uncertain what to tell the tenants, this is as much as I know and can figure out.
1. Many Apex tenants got a letter telling them to make their rent check out to Apex and send it to Anchor Bank. I have no idea what authority they have to do this under.
2. Anchor Bank says that the property is in recievership, but I can’t find any records. Given the long list of LLCs that Apex operates under, it would be a huge task to try to figure out what is going on. And, if it were in recievership, I think we’d see a more formal letter from someone other than Anchor.
3. Apex says that if you pay your rent to Anchor, then they won’t do repairs or assist you because they will have no money to do so. If they are legally still the landlord, they can’t do that. They can’t waive the responsibilities, even when a tenant doesn’t pay rent. But . . . they could start an eviction action, if they wanted to, if there is not some reason why they are no longer in the legal position of landlords.
4. Anchor Bank says if you don’t pay the rent to them, then they can “go after” the tenant. I’m not sure what that means, I don’t think they are in the legal position to be able to evict and unless there is some crazy agreement in the leases, I don’t know what standing they would have to go after the tenants.
None of this makes any sense, in the 19 years I’ve volunteered or worked at the Tenant Resource Center I’ve never seen anything like it. The good news is that they are meeting tomorrow and will hopefully get something worked out. One might be tempted to just not pay the rent until Apex and Anchor sort it out. If you haven’t gotten a 5 day notice in the last year I guess that might one option. If you do that, send a letter to both Apex and Anchor telling them you intend to pay the rent once you know which entity to pay it to. And then, the key is, DON’T. SPEND. THE. MONEY. so you have it when you need it. The other option is to pay the rent to one of the entities. If you do that, send a copy of the check to the other and keep a copy of it for yourself. Both seem like bad options at the moment. But since this isn’t a foreclosure action, we’re not sure what to tell folks at this point.
Finally, it will be interesting to see who is financing this project.
If we get any more clarity on the situation, I’ll post it here.
