License withdrawn – but will there be a charge for the property manager in a six-figure missing rent case? – KIRO 7 Seattle News
SEATTLE – Susan Roser says her property manager owes her over $ 20,000.
“It comes, it comes, it comes. The check is coming. You are going to be healed, ”says Roser. “You are going to get paid. I have heard these things over and over again. Satiety. “
This property manager is Jim Alekson. And we’ve been investigating his company, Alekson Property Management Professionals (APMPros) for months.
At least 16 landlords across Puget Sound say he collected more than $ 100,000 in rent and deposits from tenants and failed to send it to customers.
Roser says Alekson’s non-payment caused her to do the unthinkable.
“I was finally forced to sell. I had to stop the bleeding, ”she says.
Now the state has adopted Alekson’s real estate management broker’s license.
“He is dismissed for 10 years. This is the highest number of years we can revoke it, ”says Christine Anthony, communications manager for the Washington Department of Licensing.
Anthony says the license was officially withdrawn for “unprofessional conduct”.
But no fine or compensation was ordered.
“We do not have the power to seek financial compensation for the victims. Unfortunately, it has to be done in court, ”says Anthony.
At least one former client has gone to court.
“A lot of people have lost the money it was supposed to raise for them. And especially in this time of COVID-19 and so on, it’s a tough time for a lot of people to lose these funds, ”said attorney John Connelly.
Connelly represents a couple from South Sound to whom APMPros owes $ 16,000. His clients sued the company and got a default judgment. But they’re still trying to collect.
“It’s, it’s conversion, it’s a crime. This is theft. A lot of people trusted him, and he betrayed that trust, ”says Connelly.
As Alekson’s property management company struggled, he started a hand sanitizer business.
We called Alekson and pulled up to his last known address. People say he left the country.
If this is true, he leaves 16 homeowners out in the cold and walks away with six figures of their money at the worst possible time.
“I think he should be prosecuted. And I think there should be restitution to the people whose money he stole, ”says Connelly.
The last time I spoke to APPros owner Jim Alekson he told me he was going to give the owners all the unpaid rents, bonds and tax documents. Because you can’t claim your business on your taxes if you don’t have the papers.
But the owners we contacted say they never got the documents or the money.
Several former APPPMros clients have also filed police reports and complaints with the Attorney General. But when we checked, we did not find any actively pursued or pursued cases. And this is another question we would like to have an answer to.
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