Condominium Administration Company

They have been in business for almost 50 years for a reason. The negative reviews below I don’t understand.

CAC manages Marina Gateway Condominiums. The maintenance is pitiful — exterior lights burned out for months that has created a security issue, spider cobwebs everywhere, janitorial staff sits on their butt and talk or text on cell phone (no monitoring). But the number one problem is Gina Barfield — the assigned property manager. We got the bottom on the barrel. Very defensive, combative, incompetent and non-​existent listening skills. CAC needs to go.

This is the absolute worst management company you can hire or stay with. We are firing them within the next few months and couldn’t be more excited. If you currently use them, look over your financial records with a fine tooth comb because these people steal like nobody’s business. We will be seeking legal council on a possible lawsuit.
Their practices are beyond corrupt. When you hire a management company — you pay them a management fee to… manage. They take the management and charge for additional crap like assessing late fees? WTF? That’s part of managing. They get massive kickbacks on invoicing AND try and resubmit invoices that have already been paid for their own collection efforts.
Please take my advice and leave these people. Incompetent is an understatement. Counting down until we have nothing to do with these people. Now, we are just hoping they don’t try and rob us blind during the transition!

This review is for anyone who is trying to do any business interactions with this company. Not only they are irresponsible, unprofessional, rude, communicating with them or getting any help or anything is beyond impossible. Specifically Phil Hernandez their manager has a temper and issue with his job. Me and over 10 people that I know have tried contacting this management company for different issues and I can personally say that I never thought in a million years that anyone would be as messed up and rude as this person is. When people would tell me about it I did not believe it and I thought oh well they may have had a bad situation or a couple of bad interactions because no one can possibly be like that. He is beyond condescending to anyone and I was nothing but a sweetheart when I call. The first call I ever made to them was alright. They seemed to care but every other attempt has been awful. What type of a management company is this that they really cannot handle customer service? Ugh I will definitely ask my lawyer to contact them if I ever need to get in contact with them ever again, even if it is as simple as getting a contact info from them.

This review is to serve as a warning for building managers who are seeking a reliable, friendly, responsible company to manage the tenants and needs of their future investment– because CAC will not serve any of these needs.
Having interacted with the company, and its «friendly» account managers for well over 5 years, I feel like I can make a well educated assessment of the organization and can report back that they do not perform the duties of any client serving industry, let alone that of property management.

I have to concur with the other one star writers (I don’t know why more people are not complaining actually).
CAC is stuck in the stone age regarding technology. Even sending a simple email to notify homeowners seems to be an insurmountable obstacle!
As an example, they recently changed the bank where the payments are sent. You would think that any «modern» company would notify homeowners via mail (separate notice from the bill), email, a notice in the building and possibly alerting the HOA president to mention the change at their monthly meeting and putting it in the minutes.

NONE OF THE ABOVE WAS DONE
They included the information at the bottom of their bill. Therefore, for those who were not looking at their mail (away from home, direct payment, etc) the money kept going to a bank that no longer dealt with CAC.
As it turned out I was delinquent for two months Jan & Feb (ah but they said I would not incur late charges. how magnanimous!!).
As a responsible homeowner, I immediately instructed my bank to send payments to the new address, and made sure they paid the overdue amounts asap. However, although the Jan payment (sent to the old bank) had been refunded (a month later), the second one sent in Feb got cashed (???) by CAC.
So now I am the one who is owed one month’s dues! And how do you think they will remedy this mess? Well they said they will send me a check… in the mail of course… in a few weeks of course. So forget refunding me electronically, just like they prefer their bills to be paid.
They seem to have quite a fancy website… it almost looks legit… but God forbid you ask them to do anything more advanced than pencil and paper and they totally, miserably fail.

I’m so glad I don’t own a condo managed by CAC anymore. Dealing with them was a nightmare. They were rude to me on the phone, gave me bad information, basically lied to me when they said they had no power to stop automated ACH payments out of my bank account and that somehow that was my bank’s job.
I do my best to be considerate and polite to strangers on the phone, but I swear I reached the point where I was screaming at the top of my lungs into the cellphone and threatening to take them to court. Yes, it got that bad.
All I can say is that before you buy a condo, really investigate who is running the HOA and doing their paperwork. They are confused and disorganized, and I don’t appreciate them calling my escrow officer «stupid» when they were the ones making mistakes.

Condominium Administration Company Inc. (CAC) has been managing our 135 unit condo complex since May 2012 and in that time, I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with 4 of the people there. My opinion is that the employees and management of CAC are incompetent, rude, and illiterate. They outright tell lies and give misinformation and they don’t know or follow the Davis Stirling Act. They are also behind the times on technology. And they never admit to any mistakes they make.
INCOMPETENCE:
In February 2013 Diciembre scheduled a vendor to come to my condo. She neglected to give him information on how to get in the gate or any pertinent phone numbers (including my cell or her cell), so according to him, he waited outside our gate for 30 mins. and then left, after driving all the way from Riverside. Diciembre’s incompetence not only wasted his time, my time, and one of the Board member’s time, but she made our complex look bad and disorganized.
In May 2013, I was sent a letter saying I needed to remove a broken down car from my parking space. The problem is, the car was in a different space and didn’t belong to me. Diciembre wrote down the wrong parking space number, and never apologized or even admitted to her mistake.
After over a year of ignoring pleas to fix our saunas, our Board finally got one of their vendors to fix it. According to their website CAC has been in the business for over 40 years managing approximately 100 HOA complex’s. If that is true, how come CAC didn’t know of a vendor who could fix the saunas sooner?
We are currently have a roofing project done. CAC incorrectly informed some of the residents about the parking situation (when we needed to move our cars), and failed to inform us that dirt would be blowing all over our balconies and outdoor furniture, and when I questioned Marilyn Campanelli, our main Manager, about it, she made it seem like it was no big deal.
TECHNOLOGY, RUDENESS, DAVIS STIRLING, LIES & MISINFORMATION:
Marilyn and Diciembre refuse to read or respond to emails or basically put any correspondence in writing with the residents, unless of course it is to threaten them. In this day and age, what company refuses to use email, unless they have something to hide and/​or don’t want things in writing (hence proof).
And President Barbara Fisher-​Freeman responded to an email once, «Your e-​mail is being deleted. You may not e-​mail our office. Go in through our website… Everyone in our office has been instructed to block your e-​mails. Do not send.» Is this seriously any way for a President to treat one of their companies clients? (All the residents of a complex are the Property Manager’s clients and they need to learn to treat them that way.)
And if they have a company policy like both Diciembre and Marilyn have told me of not corresponding with Homeowners but only Board Members, then why did Lauri have no problem responding to my emails and actually trying to solve a dispute (she is the only one in the office I’ve encountered with any intelligence, common sense, and a resolve to try and help residents).
When you go in through CAC’s website, they don’t respond any better, nor does CAC’s website provide any proof you’ve emailed them anything. Therefore, you have no documentation should you need it later for a lawsuit or simply to document your correspondence.
I had a dispute over an issue with the condo that lasted over 18 months (in which CAC was manager for about 10 months of that). Instead of dealing with the dispute, at one point Marilyn sent me a «Cease and Desist» letter telling me to stop contacting CAC. Throughout the long dispute, CAC provided no help nor guidance to our board for following the policies for dispute resolutions clearly stated in the Davis Stirling Act.
Also, at one point, CAC brought in VP Denise Bergmans as a strong arm who along with Marilyn told outright lies and misinformation to try to shut down my dispute, instead of trying to arbitrate and solve it amicably, which is what a management company should do. Because of CAC’s failure to follow or even know proper Davis Stirling procedures, I believe this could potentially open both them and an HOA Board to a lawsuit.
Therefore, as both a homeowner and an HOA Board, you don’t want CAC managing your property.
ILLITERACY:
Adult illiteracy is a major problem in this country and you need to look no farther than CAC to know that’s true. CAC constantly spells things wrong in the notices they hand out, which makes them look unprofessional, as well as the above mentioned mistakes.
Don’t just take my word for it, make sure to look at the many 1-​Star «filtered» Unilocal reviews as well. CAC may not be quite as bad as Harris Properties (check out their reviews if you want a good laugh) or Property Management Solutions (Jo Ann Jelin is a nightmare), but CAC is certainly not a Property Management company you want. (The only good one I’ve dealt with is Horizon Management.)

No one is perfect and you get what you pay for. I can’t compare CAC with anyone else as I have not been dealt with another management company, but they do a decent job and have always been responsive to my questions. You get what you put out there. Most people buy condos and expect the same service from an apartment complex. CAC puts the responsibility back on the owner and explains with great logic and reasoning why they made their decisions. While most of the time I don’t agree, I can still see the logic. I still give them 5 stars because of their quick response time.

I have spent my entire career in the real estate industry, and have not once met a collective group of people so completely unprofessional. They are unresponsive to even the most dire of situations. When they do respond they are rude and overall unhelpful. Ed Simon could not be more incompetent. Do not let these people run your building, they are a nightmare to work with. They all must have been trained by slumlords, because that is how they operate.

I agree. They are very difficult to work with and they charge for every little thing. Plus many of their staff members are rude or unresponsive. I would definitely suggest going with another management company.