Fortezza Property Management

Do not under any circumstances hire this company. Fabio is unreliable, unprofessional, and since I still do not have my February rent, let’s throw in unethical. He will tell you that he will do anything for you, and nothing gets down.
I terminated our relationship last week and filed a complaint with the Bureau of Real Estate.
Learn from my experience!

LIES! THIEVERY! DECEIT!
Don’t make a BAD MISTAKE and hire Fortezza Property Management. The owner, Fabio Martinez, will promise you the moon and the stars, produce nothing and badly neglect you and your property!
I hired Fabio Martinez/​Fortezza Property Management to establish a tenant in my townhouse in Fullerton, CA, and here’s what I got:
1. Fabio installed a tenant who quit paying rent after the first three months.
2. Fabio failed to collect rent.
3. Fabio never provided me with copies of the paperwork established with the tenant, which was promised to me via both email and telephone.
4. Fabio failed to start an eviction, which was also promised as part of my contract with him, and the tenant has continued to live rent-​free in my townhouse.
5. Fabio also failed to refund to me the tenant’s security deposit, which was promised to me both by email and phone.
6. Fabio has ceased to return my emails and telephone calls completely as of October and has essentially abandoned management of my property.
I have sent an official complaint about Fabio and Fortezza Property Management to the California Bureau of Real Estate, which is now starting an investigation and can strip Fabio of his real estate license, depending on its findings. I don’t get anything out of this monetarily, but I hope I can prevent other people from going through what I’ve gone through.
Now it is up to me to evict the tenant, and I don’t live in the Fullerton area — I’m 350 miles away in the East Bay!
Save yourself a lot of grief and DO NOT HIRE FABIO MARTINEZ/​FORTEZZA PROPERTY MANAGEMENT TO HANDLE YOUR RENTAL PROPERTY! You’ll get lies, thievery and deceit.

I’ve been a tenant at one of his properties for about a year and a half and all I can say is THAT FUCKING MIDGET TROLL OF A MAN CAN GO DIE!!! He walked in the house when nobody was home and took pictures and sent to the owners. I understand house checks to an extent but it stated in our lease that he give us at least 24 hours WRITTEN notice. He then proceeded to try again with the pictures and when my roommate kicked him out he threw a tantrum. I can never get a hold of him, he never returns my phone calls or emails, he denies it when I say I’ve been trying to get a hold of him.
We once had a plumbing issue that I tried to discuss with him about getting fixed instead he put the blame on me and told me that it was my fault and I had to fix it and pay for it myself.
I think to myself often if this is even a legit company because there is no one at the office EVER. I have only ever talked to Fabio and can’t find any other management numbers anywhere.
I’m happy to finally not have to deal with this man anymore and sad to be leaving the house but he is just not worth it.

WHAT AN ASSHOLE. For someone who was ready to rent the property, he was THE BIGGEST DOUCHE. This is how it went; He picks up and asks (with no hello), «What property?» I told him the address. He said «It’s available. What else? Everything is online.» I asked if I can ask him a few questions and he said «Go online.» & proceeds to hang up on me when I ask for his name. He can go to hell.

Fabio is one who makes you believe that he’s someone to trust and that you can count on him to know what he’s doing. His favorite saying is, «I’ve been doing this for years!» Actually that is the problem! He’s never available when needed. There was no one who worked in the office with him, so I never spoke with anyone but always left a message. Promises are constantly made but seldom kept. Upon renting out my property he supposedly cleaned the property inside and out when it was not needed. The property was completely cleaned, painted inside, new fixtures installed, new flooring in the entire house, and clean on the outside as well with newly painted window trimmings, shutters, and a freshly painted fence. The only thing it needed was gardening which I agreed to pay for. He never followed through with obtaining a gardener as promised. The tenants subsequently agreed to get their own gardener. The house was impeccable! Yet he was convinced it needed to be washed on the outside and the new carpet cleaned! I agreed to the power washing on the outside. In addition he took it upon himself to change the locks on a newly installed entry door. He never asked for my permission to do so. Upon hearing this, I instructed him to put my new locks back on the new entry door and not to change anything else without my approval. When asked to send me the receipts for work done, it took him two months! Receipts were not from the company who supposedly had done the work but were written on general paper that he himself had written out and signed. I am convinced that all the work was not actually done but I was charged nevertheless. He was always late in sending me the disbursement checks for the rent and never had a good excuse for doing so. Checks were usually received at the end of the month! On several occasions, the checks were delivered not signed and therefore I was not able to deposit them, which created more problems. After sending him a letter terminating his services to be effective three months after the date of the letter (which is standard), he refused to do anything more in terms of management. He decided to not collect rent for the remaining term of his contract or even communicate with me or the tenants. In addition, he withheld the last disbursement check for the last month’s rent that he did collect and has not to date forwarded that check to me. I certainly would not recommend his services.

IN SUMMARY: He’s very slow to rent out. It took him 11 weeks to NOT GET A SINGLE RENTAL APPLICATION for me to quit working with him.
I signed a contract with Fabio on Feb 9^th and one of the reasons was because he quoted me the cheapest listing & monthly fees. Plus, he seemed to be very positive and responsive. It was a GREAT MISTAKE.
He promised to contact his contractor right away to do some fixing/​painting of the property. Instead, it took him at least one whole month before he finally got someone to paint the property.
And, this happened because I insisted that I would call the contractor directly. Otherwise it’d probably take him another month to get the house painted
It took him another week of excuse, on top of the one month doing nothing, to get me quotes on the carpet replacement. I never got a single carpet quote from him. He kept saying he’s got 3 quotes and will email me. But, I never got the email, and he doesn’t even have the numbers or the carpet company’s name. Sucks.
I was fed up and finally got myself a carpet company from Unilocal that was able to finish the job in 3 days or less
Fabio was unable to rent out the place until ⁴⁄₂₉ even after we lower the price to $ 50-​$ 100 lower than what other property managers are willing to price. And, this is NOT A SINGLE application submitted. Not a single one.
He kept lying about the estimates. He always answered positive answers like «oh, yes i’m sure we’ll get applications in the next few days», and a week after he’d say «for sure in a week. Definitely in two weeks this place will be rented» Lo and behold, still not a single application came it.
So, that’s a whole 11 weeks of burning cash for the mortgage before I finally decided his cheap listing price is just not worth it
He said he’s listing in hundreds of website, but I kind of doubted it since I couldn’t find them. But, one thing for sure, his listing is NOT even in the MLS listing!!!
My property is located in inland empire, and his craigslist listing for my property is posted in los angeles, which is a VERY DIFFERENT market area, that means it’s not targeting the right audience!
I finally posted my own craigslist listing and got 20+ inquiries, which I forwarded to Fabio. And, even until then, he was still unable to sign me ONE, just ONE, good tenant.
He kept asking for renovation like changing the blinds, cleaning the property with professional cleaner (which cost me 375 $ and I still haven’t got the official receipt from him), and kept blaming my property as the reason he failed to rent it out.
The property has gone worse since he took in. The garden was becoming a jungle and he didn’t even let me know about it. It wasn’t garden of eden when I handed it over to him. But it was not brown jungle full of dead grass either. He should’ve at least told me about it.
In summary, he was not helpful at all. I got to know a good contractor through him though, so that’s probably earning him the one star minimum that Unilocal requires me to give.
Why have I been so stupid in waiting for 3 months before breaking my contract with him. Darn, I should have been smarter. Now, my property is listed with ANOTHER MANAGER and WITHIN ONE WEEK I GOT SEVERAL APPLICATIONS already.
The property manager is going to weed out the applicants, but at least we got something serious going within one week.
I hope this will help those looking for a property manager…