Westminster City Living

Don’t believe a word Philip Whyte or Kevin Schiber says!
Thank God, my lease is finished, dont rent any of 234, 236, 238 East33 rd St properties. The con ed meters are illeaglly jumped for the building use and the management refuses to fix My bill is always over $ 275 monthly.
Con ed told me they saw the illegally jumped meters back in may 2015 and nobody does anything, not city or management company.
only resolution offered was to disconnect utilities by con Ed
The icing on thr cake is this is Trump’s son in law’s property managment company.
Dont give them a deposit until you see the 57 page lease. Making it legal for them to collect rent from me even if the building burns down during my lease term!

I lived in a Westminster building on Barrow Street in the West Village and it was a great apartment! Newly renovated, washer/​dryer, and very little issues arose throughout my time there. The staff at Westminster was always courteous and pleasant to work with and dealt with my inquiries/​comments in a timely manner.

This company employs bait and switch tactics and is dishonest.

these people are total crooks! do not use them! they can’t even keep the same employees — everyone we worked with last year during move in is gone 1 year later! nobody relays any info, they make things up, charge you ridiculous amounts for unnecessary things, don’t answer, don’t call you back — it’s crazy!!! they would make us use our OWN services for a clogged toilet and then NEVER reimburse us!!! they charged us $ 750 for a move out fee + cleaning the stove and nails in the wall. would never ever ever ever ever use them again

I lived in a Westminster building in the East Village (435 East 9^th Street); in a quiet one bedroom unit that had just been renovated.
Having relocated internationally, the management’s staff were very courteous and efficient in helping me with a smooth transition and managing any issues as they arose. Overall unit quality was high and both the super and the company dealt with any kinks in the pre-​war building that needed fixing quickly as they arose. Would recommend among the myriad of management companies with varying quality of service.

I lived in their location in Boerum Hill BK and the building was well maintained and well improved after the previous Management co.

My experience here on 12^th St, East Village, in an apartment run by WM has been atrocious.
Over the last ten months we have had to hound them over:
— Broken locks on our window. They had the cheek to tell us that they cannot be latched in case of fire. Nonsense! Never felt safe and kept my bedroom door locked.
— Severe damp and mould in the second bedroom; when it rains outside it pours inside. Very unhealthy to live with the damp because of the spores.
— Our oven does not get hot enough to cook food.
— Leaking bucket loads of water from the bathroom vent. We had to keep a bin on the sink surface.
— Door buzzer has not worked throughout my year-​long tenancy.
ALL of this in spite of multiple requests to get it sorted out.
Typically — a disgruntled handyman would turn up at some point or other, look, leave, and the problems were never resolved.
We have had several monster roaches on account of being near the bins and with a kitchen window that sometimes likes to fall out of its frame… as well as ants marching through the broken window.
What’s more; they seem to think that a «showing time window» is appropriate notice for showing my apartment: weekdays 8am — 6pm they can wander in whenever is convenient, and restricted weekend hours. To add to the lack of professionalism they have listed our apartment with entirely the wrong set of photographs, which reeks of a «bait and switch» scam.
Apartment is listed as move in May 1^st — the day after I leave, when it is illegal for them to let the property again until they’ve repainted the walls (NYC State Law specifies every three years, and it’s been continually occupied for longer by my roommate). Although, at the end of the day this is the least of the health and safety worries that a prospective tenant ought to be made aware of, or the evasions of the law that WM are making.
RE this block in general — I’m often kept up til the early hours because of neighbours frat parties and every few days we get a very strong marijuana odour permeating our entire living space.
In short, save yourself stress and discomfort and avoid ever having to deal with Westminster Management.

Unilocal needs to have minis –zero stars cause Kushner’s creeps need to be shamed for how they treat their renters. they over price, have massive drug and huge party problems in their buildings. They do not fix, nor clean. inside apartments are rotting with mold and other issues, outside has rats, booze bottles all over hall and rancid garbage. The violations from the city of New York just pile up by the mailbox.
All Kushner’s apts are disgusting. do not rent from his Managment.

Horrible management! We will be taking them to Housing Court soon. It’s the peak of Winter and we haven’t been provided heat for 3 weeks. Also, we still don’t have kitchen countertops, a kitchen sink, dishwasher. The washer dryer isn’t plugged in still. The management is awful about returning calls and making sure the contractors are doing their job. If you find them on Streeteasy, no matter how good of a deal you think you’re getting, don’t do it!

SEE THE PHOTOS IN THE PHOTO SECTION!
If you are considering renting from Westminster, you need to do some building research on the rental ASAP, and read the reviews. We lived in the East Village at 195 East 4^th, ground floor in a 4 bedroom, two bath duplex. If you are looking to rent this place, be aware of the following. Due to management NOT responding to over 15 emails (both through there own website, and directly to them), along with numerous calls they created an extremely dangerous mold situation in the Kitchen and stairway that leads from the upstairs to the downstairs. We had water leaking through the light sockets, which then spread quickly to other areas and spread quickly to create dangerous mold. Management didn’t seem to care, as they just wanted to get us out to charge higher rent. So BEWARE if you are looking at this apartment, or building. Other things that constantly occurred was the lights never consistently worked, the plumbing backs up, and trash was not picked up in the garbage area in a timely manner, leading to various rodents and smells. The apartment was also lacking in natural light, as the only windows were in the upstairs bedrooms. No windows in the common area, or downstairs. Also, the Time Warner cables are very old and we consistently received horrible internet speeds. The only positives about the place was the location was great. I would think twice about renting from this non responsive, non caring management company. They are lucky we had already moved out, as the city came by to inspect the mold situation, but could not get in the place.

I wish so badly that I had read these reviews beforehand. I lived at 156 Sullivan Street, a Westminster property. I have never in my life had an experience like this or dealt with such rude, incompetent, and lazy people. DO NOT LIVE IN ONE OF THEIR BUILDINGS.
Westminster City Living has major issues across the board, including how they treat tenants, their response time to small or major maintenance issues, cleanliness and odor, and — perhaps most alarming — rodents and vermin. I have been living is what is technically an «uninhabitable» apartment for several months at Westminster. This is as a result of the buzzer not having worked for 3 months now, a legitimate rat infestation, and improper care and disposal of the garbage — which is dragged out through the front hall (leaving behind trails as if a trash snail had just slugged its way through the front hall), and a horrid odor that spreads up the stairs.
At least once per month we lose hot water throughout the building, and we’ve even had stretches of 5 – 7 days at a time without hot water. Providing heat and hot water is a bare-​minimum legal obligation of a landlord according to New York state laws. By not doing so, an apartment is considered legally uninhabitable.
Additionally, cleanliness and lack of vermin are bare minimum legal requirements of a landlord. Westminster, in our case, has failed to meet the bare minimum in that regard. Rats (as evidenced by the images attached), are so prevalent in our building that they should be paying rent.
Also, in a building with 8 or more units, residents must have access to a buzzer to «buzz» in visitors. Again, this is one of just a handful of minimum legal obligations that a landlord must meet to be in accordance with the laws of NYC and the State of New York. We have not had a functioning «buzzer’ in our building for THREE consecutive months. Note, this is a walk-​up building.
Not only has Westminster failed to provide any resolutions for these issues, but they have also failed to admit their errors and our refusing to refund rent for periods in which the apartments have been considered legally uninhabitable. Additionally, in demanding retribution for their illegal activities, they have proceeded to bully and threaten not only myself, but other residents in the building — even changing one resident’s locks. These types of threats are also against the law.
We were forced to organize a tenant association in order to attempt to combat these issues, but Westminster has still failed to meet their obligations, while threatening to impose additional fees and penalties on the renters in our building. In attempting to move out of the building, Westminster has issued negative reviews of ME as a renter in my landlord reference letter in order to try to prevent me from leaving my apartment, further perpetuating their belligerence toward tenants to whom they have failed to deliver even their bare minimum legal obligations as landlords.
People need to know about this type of behavior before signing up to live in a Westminster building.

I was told my apartment would be ready for move-​in, one month ago. It is still not ready. Twice I was told it was finished and both times I arrived to find it filthy, unfinished and unsafe. Every move-​in date I have been given has been wrong. Today I was told for the second time it was finally, truly, ready for move-​in. So, after work, I went to the apartment and found it completely unfinished and unlivable. There wasn’t a toilet or sink, the electrical was unfinished with exposed wires everywhere, the contractor’s trash and tools were everywhere, nails were jutting out of the walls, it reeked of paint and was an unsafe mess. Even after they previously acknowledged their mistakes, they once again never bothered to walk a few blocks to the apartment and actually look at it before declaring it move-​in ready AGAIN.
The individuals at the company all seem like good people, but as a company, they are awful at communicating, and don’t seem to care about their clients enough to take the basic steps to ensure their safety, well-​being and time.
If my experience changes I will update this review but for now I can honestly say I have never had a more disheartening experience with any business. I wish I never gave them a deposit, and in the future will never put a deposit on any apartment under renovations.

They just bought a building in Brooklyn– on State Street. It’s in a great location and the apartments were well-​maintained by the prior owner, but I have a feeling that this place will soon decay into disrepair.
Since Westminster has taken over early this summer, we’ve had
— a brand new ant problem
— cockroaches in common areas
— incessant noise from endless gut rehabs
— a fridge that remained broken for TWO WEEKS that they refused to repair or replace. When they finally sent somebody to replace it, they trashed the kitchen and didn’t clean it up. Oh, and the fridge they gave us was half the size of the old fridge.
— hot water randomly shut off in the middle of the day
— very difficult to get in touch with anybody. Emails will go unanswered for weeks. Phone calls unanswered, voice mail boxes full.
— really dangerous construction was going on in an apartment a few floors above us; for several days over the course of weeks, I saw construction crews THROWING giant pieces of wood and garbage out the windows and into the backyard from 5 stories up.
— a piece of the counter fell off three months ago. There’s still a hole in the counter under the sink. We’ve given up hope that it will ever be repaired.
It might look like a great building, but longtime tenants are moving out left and right, and so are we. If I’ve learned anything from living in New York City, it’s that it’s 100 times better to find a great landlord than to find a perfect apartment. Avoid. Seriously.

LILY is amazing!!! She met my collage son who attends NYU. Lily quickly put together apartments that would fit his needs and walked us through the whole process till the end. My son now has a GREAT apartment!!! You definitely want to work with her!!!

I feel like their management has gotten a little better since I first moved in, but they still kinda suck. Place is run by very «green» just-​graduates that don’t really seem like they know what they’re doing, but they’re at least responsive.
They have all these really weird «policies» about moving out that don’t seem quite kosher. One of the most ridiculous things they expect is to come show your apartment for 6 – 8 hours per day (7 days a week) for 2 months before you move out while charging you full rent. They also tried to rush me on my move-​out date saying I only have until like noon to move out. Weirdos. And they try to bully manhandle you into giving consent by saying ‘that’s just our policy” instead of just asking nicely and finding a mutually agreeable solution. They did promptly return my security deposit though.
They used to not respond very promptly to maintenance issues, but now they’re good about getting back to you but not necessarily at fixing the problem. My pipes freeze again and again and again in the winter, and they always recommend a janky temp fix. Which resulted in a giant pipe exploding fiasco. Smart. That’s kinda how they fix anything you ask them to here — quick and dirty, half-​assed. Don’t bother to patch up walls or anything. I guess that’s better than nothing though.
Used to have huge rat fest all over in the garbage area because they didn’t clean up the trash properly. This has gotten better.
This said, it’s too bad that the NYC rental market doesn’t give tenants much choice who to rent from. That’s why crappy property management companies like this get by. Bite the bullet when you live in the city.

Horrible… Bad service, inflexible, not willing to help in anyway. My advice would be to stay away. More than happy to sign the lease but once that is done that’s it.
Rent somewhere else.

I’m really disappointed to be reducing my rating. I’ve enjoyed a problem free tenancy for the past 9 months except for a single sticking point: the numbers on the apartment doors are not sequential or logical. I brought this to their attention when I moved in and decided it was time to stop ignoring it early last month. Such a silly, minor thing that is a pretty easy fix (order the plaques, glue them on). Instead, they’ve decided to play games and drag their feet HARD on this.
I really want to let this go. But the fact that they’re so stubborn around this is fueling my effort to pursue it. I receive *tons* of courier deliveries, and also have a lot of stuff picked up when I’m away. The numbers on the doors skip other numbers, have higher numbers before other lower numbers and some doors just aren’t numbered. I feel terrible for the unit beneath me, constantly getting bothered. This isn’t just a comical clown house frustration, it’s actually a Class A violation of the New York City Housing Maintenance Code (§ 27 – 2048).
I have no idea why they are so resistant to making this simple change. Just this past week they painted the walls, installed bright new lights in the hallway. But they must REALLY not want correctly numbered doors. So I can either ignore it or order the materials myself, get bids from contractors, send them an invoice and deduct the whole thing from my rent, and realistically probably end up in housing court all because they want to be children about this. Sorry we had to breakup this way but I will get the doors numbered.
Unless your apartment needs absolutely zero maintenance, Westminister is a poor management company as they will ignore the issue if they don’t feel like resolving it. Do not rent from Westminister.

Inflexible, uncaring and incompetent employees. They claimed we were behind on rent every month for TEN WHOLE MONTHS before one of their Neanderthal employees realized that a previous Neanderthal had mistakenly charged us for the amount of a rent check instead of cashing it. Good job forgetting the difference between addition and subtraction, [NAME REDACTED]!
The buildings are disgusting unless they’re showing out a room (which they will do without warning on Saturdays or sundays, claiming they don’t need permission.)
It’s fun looking at the Unilocal reviews for these guys. Wish I’d seen them before signing my lease.

AVOID THIS MANAGEMENT COMPANY AT ALL COSTS. This would be zero stars if that was an option. I’m a current resident in one of their buildings. It’s been more than 3 weeks since I reported water leaking from my ceiling. Because it wasn’t addressed, a portion of my ceiling collapsed into my bed. Fortunately I was not sleeping at this time of the collapse. In one area, water was leaking from an electrical fixture and it still has not been inspected for safety, not has there been any inspection for presence of mold, despite repeated requests. In short, nothing they offer is worth the rent, hassle, etc.

Well, finally glad to see people start reporting on the incompetency of this company. It’s impossible to get a hold of someone, and when you do there’s no follow through or you get an extreme amount of rudeness. I find the best way to address this is to relentlessly follow up on their empty promises. Some examples:
— As I write this, it’s 6:30 am and I’ve been up for the past hour and a half dealing with a busted pipe that is leaking brown water through the ceiling. Call the super you say? I don’t even know who the super is — every time I call the office they are «getting a new one» or «the new super is dealing with emergencies.» So now I have to wait until 9 for the office to open (no one answers the phone until mid morning usually). I’ll have to call again even though I’ve left a message bc they don’t call back. I need a plumber, but I have to go through them so they can call their plumber.
— work orders seem to be optional. When I told then my wall moldings were cracked and letting little critters in, I literally called for about 5 months before someone came in «fixed it.» They are not fixed. They are still cracked? I’m not blind.
–in a different time when i had the super’s phone number, he constantly complained about how many apartments he had to take care of any time he didn’t show up when he was supposed to, or when we had an emergency (ex: when we had dire bathroom issue, for some reason he was «at home in New Jersey»…are you allowed live «2 and a half» hours away if you are a super in nyc? I don’t know…)
–the office staff is constantly changing, so any issues you may be communicating with the current staff will get dropped off quickly.
–the apartments are renovated, but badly so. The apartment was filthy when we moved in, which required my mom and I to scrub it from head to toe for two days, and there was still paint tape on the walls. As someone else mentioned, lots of things seemed to still need fixing, like the sink handles and the bathtub. I can be bratty sometimes, but it’s general courtesy to clean the dang apartment before the new tenants move in.
–several times they posted our rent incorrectly and it took literally months to fix. «Just pay what you owe» they would say. But dude, having those random extra hundreds of dollars that we DONT owe hanging out can affect your credit report. Someone was always «working on getting it fixed» or «calling accounting». When our rent increased, they increased it by more than what was stated in our lease renewal! The guy I talked to was so patronizing and rude (even though it was their mistake) and actually started yelling at me when I didn’t understand how they could mess up simple number entry. (Highlights include «JUST LISTEN TO ME»).
–the big finale: we had some roommates we were unaware of less than 3 months after we moved in (hint: they like to live in your furniture and bite you when you sleep and generally terrorize you). After catching one and calling the office, I felt like everyone was way to calm about the issue, especially since the whole building was at trial. I eventually took over all the extermination appointments and scheduling myself. Westminster paid for the extermination, as they should, but after a year I’m still paranoid. No transparency as to how many other apartments they treated or how successful they were in getting rid of the problem (though there were some vague emails about disposing of mattresses a couple months after we moved back in after the debacle…)
The building itself isn’t actually in bad condition. It just doesn’t get the proper maintenance and becomes an unnecessary headache.
Also pro tip: I noticed that my apt was having a problem with dampness overall. I kept calling to have someone check for mold («MOLD??» Said the girl in the office. «Okay…»), but no one ever came. I bought a de-​humidifier off amazon and it has worked wonders. No more damp smells or distorted floors. I imagine I can’t be the only one with this problem. It’s most apparent in the summer with the extreme humidity.
Honestly, we were so confused when the rent went up this year. HAHA… but seriously why?
At least there’s a dishwasher.