Westmount at London Park — Local services in Spring

DO NOT APPLY UNLESS YOU ARE CERTAIN YOU WILL LEASE. YOUR ADMINISTRATIVE FEE AND YOUR DEPOSIT WILL NEVER BE RETURNED. $150 Admin fee. Gone. READ ON....

I toured these apartments about a week ago. The property was sufficient and the agent was pleasant and I decided to apply. They charged a typical $50 application fee and a $150 administrative fee. The latter fee was to be held while they took the property off the market during the approval process. Also standard.

They also mentioned that they had a special deposit program so that you "didn't have to pay the deposit all up front at move in". I had never seen this before and didn't really understand it as the agent explained it to me, but seemed a benefit and I forgot about it. Then I received my "approval". My approval came with a $1500 deposit. Not to worry though! You can make payments to a third party vendor they have a contract with.....? I have perfect rental history. No outstanding rental debt, no evictions, rent on time. $1500? I haven't paid more than $500 in the past 15 years.

So here's the deal with their third party "we'll help you out with your deposit" vendor:

1. This is a money making venture whereby this third party makes money off of you by "covering" your deposit up front.
2. The apartment management company - owners of Westmount at London Park - is thereby incentivized to hand out high deposit amounts. Super squeaky clean? Still expect about $750.
3. Then the vendor pays the absurd $1500 deposit for you so you can move in.
4. You pay them back in monthly installments. If you spread it out over the 12 months of your lease it raises your rent payment by $125/month. Nice!
5. You will not get any of your "deposit" money back when you move out That belongs to the third party company now. Cause they helped you, right?
6. Not into it? No worries. Just cough up $1500 prior to move in like a regular deposit would be paid. Pay that and other move in fees on day 1. No sweat, right?

I decided this was an absurd system designed to take advantage of me and that $1500 for perfect rental history was unacceptable. So I emailed the leasing office to withdraw my application. Understanding that application fees are non-refundable, I requested that the administrative fee used to hold the apartment during the application process be returned.

They refused. That is their money now.

If you want to apply to this property you should be very sure you want to play the deposit game with them and their third party vendor making money on the deposits. And be sure that you are certain you will accept whatever unit you are approved for. Because it will cost you $200 whether or not you decide to move forward, and that is before you pay whatever inflated deposit they offer. All this happened before I even signed a contract with them. Wow.

And when you see this property responding to other negative reviews they have received, and they respond with "we're sorry about your experience" and "please contact our office" or some version of these - understand I called and spoke with them to discuss this prior to posting this review. They had the opportunity to resolve this issue. They didn't want to resolve anything, they wanted the $200. Be assured any "call us" or "sorry to hear" responses from management are definitely not genuine. At least they made $200 for this...

We have lived here 3 years total. Our 1st year was great! Front office (Cynthia & later Bianca) was so professional and organized. The maintenance and upkeep was very well done. The property was always clean and the drainage in the parking lot was often cleaned because during storms the parking lot never flooded to were you started fearing for your vehicle. But after the 1st year the property went downhill to new management & these last 2 years and change of front office/maintenance staff has made our experience unpleasant to say the least. I notice maintenance is not prompt or friendly and the front office is much less so. Front office never answers the phone, you can call all day and no one will answer. We are not the type of people that complain about every little thing but the handful of times we have needed to speak to them these last 2 years have not been pleasant. Thankfully I have not had problems with roaches because I clean & use pesticides every 3months but the outside property is not well maintained anymore. The carports were painted but not every carport got a number. Ours was one of the unlucky ones and now when I get home late some people think it is okay to park there because it has no number. We have small children and i do not think it is fair that i have to walk in the middle of the night with my Children across the parking lot because someone is parked in the carport I pay...

Opossums in my ceiling and walls. Bizarre? I agree. It's been well over a week of letting them know and nothing. They say their waiting on some traps from a different apartment and we have the option of moving out (cancelling our lease). Really though, it's December and all the fees and time it takes to find a new home, is really unfortunate. I'm sure some would agree. Plus we do already plan moving out of state when this lease is up. So basically nothing is getting done. I've seen no progress, no updates with us, letting us know if something is even being done. It's saddening cause I hear the opossums scratching/running in the walls and scratching the metal above the dining light. The roof pieces are starting to fall on the table and they already made a hole in the storage area where we of course store our stuff. I get scared that they're going to scratch their way through the wall on our side and end up in our home. They know about this but doesn't seem like they care. It's always seemed that way though. I've had like two things truly taken care of and have been here for over a year. If you want something done, do it yourself. The complex didn't get flooded during Hurricane Harvey so that's worth noting. Your experience here will also depend on the kind of neighbors you have around you. No place is perfect but with my experience here I wouldn't recommend this place to you or anyone I...