Stay away from Boardwalk Rentals

[Kobe]

As a first time renter I wanted a larger company that I believed would not try to screw me for every penny I owned. Oh boy was I wrong, I don't think I could have picked a shitter corporation to deal with.

Before I moved in I have no issues with boardwalk until they decided to start charging for electricity when it was suppose to be included in the bills.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/Busines...207/story.html

Anyways on to why I'm pissed off, 6 months ago I renewed my lease for 1 year because I was not aware I could renew for 6 months as I was never told about a 6month renewal. They offered to give me a $100 discount a month which would make my place $1,109 instead of $1,209. That was great news? 5 months later I realized I wont be living in town for the rest of the year and I need to cancel my lease, so I talk to my landlord and I am aware of the $1,000 fee to cancel my lease. I see no problems with that and am willing to pay that.

So to try to save the $1,000 I try to rent my place on beyond, kijjiji and rentfaster but with no luck since the market prices are gone down. If I want to be able to have a lease break I need to give 1 months notice before I leave for the leasebreak to be effective so at the end of June I fill out the papers and give to my landlord which also stated I have to pay my $100 incentive on every month i had a discount off on, which is $700!!!

A week later when boardwalk puts my apartment up for rent I find out they are renting it for $925/m which is pretty much $300/month less then I am paying.


So I go down to the head office today to talk to someone if I can get the $100/month taken off because I think that's ridiculous and they pretty much tell me to fuck off and there is nothing I can do about.


Well a big FUCK YOU to Boardwalk! I will pay your fees however do not expect me or many other tenants to be renting with your shitty company again.

Ps: I was talking to a few people in my building and they are not pleased with your customer service and will definitely not be choosing another boardwalk rental again.

[Xtrema]

They can get away with it because you signed a contract

[Kobe]

Originally posted by Xtrema
They can get away with it because you signed a contract

I realize that obviously hence why I am going to pay it, however there customer service for a large company regarding situations like that is horrible.

[scat19]

You signed and agreed to a contract. What's the problem here?

Did you or boardwalk realise the marked would dip? No.

Next.

[spikerS]

does not matter what they want to charge for it now, they gave you a price, and you agreed to it. as far as backcharging the 100 a month is a little low, but it is part of the agreement. most places also offer a 6 month lease as well for renewals, you should have asked about it.

[Jlude]

that's pretty shitty dude... but it is what it is.

[Canmorite]

Shady-ish, but that's what they do. Glad I'm not in that building anymore haha

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Kobe


I realize that obviously hence why I am going to pay it, however there customer service for a large company regarding situations like that is horrible.

Smaller landlords are actually more willing to be flexible than big name property management companies.

They will follow the contract's every word to squeeze more $$$ out of you for canceling early (hence $1800 less for the 6 remaining months).

What they charge after you left isn't your concern unless you are renting from them again.

In the end, if you asked for a 6 months option, you'll probably won't be in this situation (and really, why would you even lock yourself in a 1 year contract when a) you know you may have to leave b) rental prices already started to slide when you resigned.)

[Kloubek]

I think this is somewhat akin to buying a product in a store, and then it going down in price. This happens for both product and rental prices alike. Many companies will compensate you for the difference on the price of a product, but only for a short period of time... like 1 month. You are six months into it, and if it was a customer buying a product from one of our stores I wouldn't budge either... especially if the customer signed a contract agreeing to the price in the first place.

[benyl]

It is called hedging.

It works both ways. You just happened to be on the losing end of the deal.

Happens all the time. You are lucky they allowed you to break the lease at all. If they wanted to real assholes, they would have made you payout the rest of the lease.

[bignerd]

Yep Boardwalk sucks. Underground parkade use to flood with foul smelling water (sewage?), people would dump their garbage in the underground parkage and Boardwalk would do nothing about it and they also let bums pick through the trash cans. Not to mention their over zealous parking lot security guards...

[adam c]

i just signed with boardwalk and i'm not to happy about it either...

when the gf and i were looking for places to rent, the first question we asked was "is this a smoking building" in all the places we looked at the answer was no...

the reason why non smoking is such a big deal is because we have a new born baby and don't want her exposed to second or third hand smoke.

well a couple days after moving into my suite, i could smell cigarette smoke throughout my apartment, thinking it came from outside i closed all the windows and went on with my day and the smell went away. awesome. well the next morning i woke up and it smelled like someone was inside my apartment smoking. i opened the door to the hallway and the whole area in front of my door was just a haze of smoke. it is coming from the unit across from me. after numerous complaints, i was finally told there is nothing they can do except talk to the other unit because "Smoking is allowed in the Units, just not in the common areas" like wtf is this shit?!?!? it's a family building for one and we wouldn't have chosen that building if we were told at first that smoking is allowed in the building. every morning my place smells like smoke because of the guy across the hall from me, he smokes like crazy and it comes into my place from the draft in the door. i can't afford to break my lease since this is only the first month and will cost a shit load and they only thing they will do is ask him to open his windows

[Rstar]

write a song and make it into a youtube video sensation

[max_boost]

Originally posted by Xtrema


Smaller landlords are actually more willing to be flexible than big name property management companies.

They will follow the contract's every word to squeeze more $$$ out of you for canceling early (hence $1800 less for the 6 remaining months).

What they charge after you left isn't your concern unless you are renting from them again.

In the end, if you asked for a 6 months option, you'll probably won't be in this situation (and really, why would you even lock yourself in a 1 year contract when a) you know you may have to leave b) rental prices already started to slide when you resigned.)

Yep. I've been in all kinds of situations but always end up working out a deal for the tenant so both sides can leave on good terms. With the larger companies, you are basically screwed, read the fine print!

[masoncgy]

Interesting. Boardwalk was really decent with me when I had to break my lease back in the fall of 2004...

I was living in Centre Pointe West... on 13 Ave in the Beltline. 6 months into a 1-year lease, life threw me a curve ball and I had to move out.

I paid the $1000 lease break fee, minus the $400 SD I paid, so $600 out of my pocket to move out.

I was getting a rental incentive of $100 off a month too for signing a 1-year lease, but they never made me pay it back. It never even came up.

Maybe they've had enough people take off before the lease is expired that they enforce repayment of the incentive... hmmmm...

I would never rent with Boardwalk again or recommend them, for other reasons though. lol.

[lilmira]

I used to rent from Boardwalk and I never had any problem with the company, with other tenants, that's a different story.

Party people making a mess in the hallway, dog shitting inside the building, smoking, being able to hear what the people are doing next door at night.......... great time.

[adidas]

Back in 99 alot of ppl that my parents knew lived in a building on 13th ave SW. The building was great overall. Boardwalk made a name for itself i believe that same year and they started buying all sorts of property, including this building. It was so shitty that atleast 10 families moved out that my parents knew. Id say overall 60% of the building evacuated that place and went to live elsewhere.