G P A Property Management

The rent is decent for a college town but DO NOT STAY HERE! they will cheat you out of your deposit and charge outrageous cleaning fees that shouldn't apply. Management is rude and disgusting especially the property owner Lori. If you do plan to stay here. RECORD your entire walk through when you move in down to the smallest details! show proof of any previous damages and keep record if every maintenance visit to assure things were fixed

Maintenance was great and polite. Apartment was pretty nice. Management is terrible. They also screw you on your deposit check. You might as well pay them to clean it themselves and not even waste your time and energy. They charged $274 to sweep up a few small dog hairs, clean a tiny spot on the toilet and dust off one door handle. I know that took LESS than an hour to do. If that's what they pay their cleaning people for doing that little of work, I am in the wrong profession and I need to go clean for them. Complete rip off. They also took $125 for carpet cleaning and repair AFTER we paid $150 to have it cleaned by the people they MAKE you hire when there was nothing wrong with the carpet. Totally makes sense, right? They also send you huge magnified pictures of things you missed while cleaning, which I find hilarious. Congratulations, you found a few dog hairs under the fridge!! Great detective work!

My husband and I began renting when the complex was still called Southampton Villas. It is my understanding that the buildings in the complex are owned/managed by different companies. Our particular building was owned by RBP Construction, and managed by GPA Properties. My review of the property is based on my experiences with this company ONLY and does not reflect the management of the unites that may have different owners.

The property manager you will deal with is named Lori. She is a slumlord at best. She is extremely rude, unprofessional, and has literally yelled at me over the phone before because I pointed out to her that she was poorly handling a situation. I have a degree in business communication and administration and can assure that, every single time I or my husband spoke with her, we maintained the utmost professional respect possible and it was not returned in the least. Her main tactic for dealing with tenants is bullying.

Toward the end of our tenantship, we vacated the property two weeks early because we were so done. We had paid rent for the full month and were fully aware that that was our choice, and we did not request any compensation for doing so. As soon as she discovered that we were not actually staying in the unit, she demanded permission to go in and begin making repairs, however she did not offer to do a formal walk though and we had not been made aware of these "repairs" ahead of time. We said we would be find with that, however we wanted pro-rated back pay for the days which she would be taking the property back over, as our least allowed us to maintain tenancy until the end of the month. She argued this with us and became very upset when we refused to allow the maintenance crew to go in and begin making repairs. Our concerns were clearly laid out for her: We were not going to allow repairs to be made until we had completed the walk-through inspection, and we were not going to allow maintenance in the apartment to make repairs and leave ourselves open to liability in case damages occurred while said "repairs" were being made. We told her we would end our lease early with a repayment of rent and a written confirmation from her verifying that she requested to enter the property early, and NOT that we broke the lease of our own accord. She refused to do either and told us we should seek legal counsel.

Our apartment itself never gave us any problems; we were happy with the unit, the maintenance crew, and the area. Initially we decided to leave to move to a place that gave us more space; however after our experiences with Lori I would not advise ANYONE to live here, unless of course you are renting from someone who owns one of the other buildings. If Lori has any business background whatsoever, I would be thoroughly surprised. She has no concept of professionalism, or even a basic knowledge of landlord/tenant statutes and basic responsibilities. I don't wish anyone to go through what my husband and I have, as she has caused much stress and discomfort for us.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE RENT FROM THEIR PROPERTIES.
Lori Allen is the most terrible human being on the planet. I called the City to report them regarding the unhygienic and general safety hazards around the dumpsters. Her response to me was and I quote " I suggest YOU make suggestions to me as to how we can improve the dumpster situation". Make suggestions I make suggestions? Lady YOU are nuts! They Attempted to obtain PET FEES on our service dog, and went so far as to have her lawyer send us threatening letters. Which BTW is highly illegal. They are crooked, a$$ backwards, terrible property owners. Upon move out they insist we use their carpet cleaning people and nickel and dimed us in order to keep the $700 deposit. Seriously? $250 dollars to sweep the kitchen floor and clean a tub? That's 12 hours of paid labor for only an hour of work! If you choose to live here, be warned. Lawyer up.

DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT rent from these scammers. They have threatened me in very unprofessional ways several times. I have text messages saved personally from Lori Allen. They excessively charged us for normal wear and tear. There was a situation when they VERBALLY AUTHORIZED a sub-leaser to move her things in, without my consent or knowledge, then proceeded to charge me for ANOTHER carpet cleaning when I had just cleaned them before she moved in because they had NO written authorization that they let her move in. These are all just a few complications that I've had to deal with for the last 12 months. Please do not rent from these people. I'm currently in a series of consultations with my lawyer to take care of this. They are a waste of time and the worst scammers!

The apartment we lived in was nice. The issue is with management. Laurie, the manager, doesn't have a soul. I understand having to be tough on tenants so you make sure they pay on time but she is over the top. We had been tenants for 4 years and always paid our rent on time and never caused any issues. Within the last year we bought our first new house. Supposed to be exciting, right? Laurie made it a living hell. We had 2 months left in our lease and tried to negotiate payment with her. She wouldn't have it. I understand we signed a lease but it seems like after being good, paying tenants for 4 years she would be willing to work with us. Nope! I don't think she has any compassion or even know what it means to be a civil human being. Pretty sure she is a direct descendent of Hitler. Also, I'm also positive she wears a wig. Laurie aka wig lady!

I would recommend renting from GPA properties. I lived in the 2 bedroom apartments for 2 years and did not have any serious issues with the management. As noted by other reviewers, the places are very nice. Personally, every time I called for maintenance management would come and fix the issue within 2-6 days depending on the severity. Management also brings in a snow removal crew to clear the parking lots as a courtesy, as well as provides pizza and soda at Christmas time as a thank you to the tenants. When we first moved in three of the units were broken into, management installed additional door jams for the sliding glass doors, and in the 2 years I lived there no more break ins occurred. Just so people know that I am not under contract by the company, or being paid to write this, there are a few things to keep in mind if renting from GPA. the dumpsters can become rather messy, largely in part because there are no security measures in place to keep people from driving in the parking lot and dumping their trash, management does not send anyone out to clean up the trash. Upon move in, document everything, this is good advise for anywhere you move in. GPA has a cleaning list for moving out and they are serious about it. If you have documentation about problems that were there when you moved in though, management will work with you and be fair about giving back the deposit. The only issue I had was when we first moved in we had a maintenance worker come in un-announced. I contacted management informing them about their break in lease and it never happened again. Bottom line is if you as a renter do your part, pay your rent, keep things clean, etc.. then GPA does theirs. I have lived in a lot of places moving around for various jobs/degrees, and I can honestly say GPA properties is a nice place to live and a fair company, but as others have mentioned, know what is in your lease, what you are entitled to, and what you are responsible for as a renter.

DO NOT RENT FROM HERE!! These apartments may look nice, but they are terrible, and management (specifically, Lori) is even worse. They never fixed the broken tile in our kitchen, never fixed our thermostat, never fixed our fans (when on the medium setting they'd wobble so much that it looked like it was going to break itself), and couldn't even fix our dishwasher correctly. Then at the end of our lease she accused us of having a second dog in the place and justified her reasoning because we had two kennels in the house. I've had both since I got my dog two years ago. Then she harassingly sent me emails on a daily basis saying that I was "diverting the issue" and "caused all this drama." She then basically stalked me on facebook. And after that she threatened to sue me because I said she came over unannounced at 8am. She claims she didn't since she told our old roommate who had moved out 3 months ago about it, so technically, she did. I would give this place a negative star review, but since that's not an option, I'm forced to give them the one star they don't deserve. If you do rent here, or are thinking about it, lawyer up and know your rights as a tenant.

The place itself is great, but this is honestly the most unprofessional rental company I've ever been associated with. I will never recommend any GPA Property to anyone. When issues arose, I tried to set up a meeting with Lorie at the office, and she declined because she 'had nothing more to say to me.' However, she has time to call my roommates and me at 9:00pm. She played the "he said, she said" game with me, and anything I said was "absolutely incorrect!" They are undoubtedly the most unreasonable management I've ever had to deal with. Absolutely awful.

This is by far the worst managed rental company that I know of. We currently are in a lease until August. We got a letter from them in January telling us that they needed to know if we were renewing our lease or not and if we didn't notify them by Jan 21 with a signed lease renewal that we would be charged an extra $50 on rent each month. As well as they have been showing our house (ITS FEBRUARY!) every day for the past two weeks with no notification when it will be showed except for an email saying "We are showing your house February 15-21 anywhere from 10 am to 6 pm" It amazes me the lack of professionalism that they offer. I will never give them a good review.

The units are very nice BUT the management is awful beyond belief. We had neighbors from hell who called the police on us at least 8 times over the course of the year. These neighbors threatened to kill my roommate's dog, took pictures of our license plates because we were not parked correctly when we first moved in, tried to run into one roommate's car while she was stopped at a four way stop, and attempted to take a picture through our window of the inside of our living room to show Lori we were not using the correct cable provider. These neighbors also called the police on half of the houses on our block for noise disturbances, that turned out to be nothing, multiple times. GPA Properties, Lori, Misty, Megan, and whoever else works there, did absolutely nothing about ANY of these situations. They are not friendly, they are not understanding, and they will try to get the most money out of you as possible. I agree with the other reviewer wholeheartedly that they will steal your security deposit. They are claiming I broke the window frame in my room which will cost $300-$500 to fix, even though it was put on the walkthrough as broken. The management is horrible and I suggest to stay far away from them.

DO NOT RENT FROM HERE. GPA Properties has nice places but the management is the worst in Columbia. They will try to steal, yes I said steal, your security deposit. They failed to fix several problems with my duplex such as a fault window, which later ended up breaking. GPA charged me for it (The latch was broken, when the window was pulled up it fell forward and cracked). Lori is completely rude and doesn't deserve a single tenant. She is mono toned, ugly, and a complete jerk.

Don't go to GPA. The houses seem nice but the management is terrible. They treated us like we were children and made things enormously more complicated than they needed to be. They also said they would come fix several problems that never got fixed and even when they said they treated for bugs the bugs were still a huge problem. When we moved in the house was already in bad condition, with huge chips in the paint and broken tiles. Any time I would call they would say they would call me right back and they never did. When I brought this up with them they said all of my issues were complicated and they didn't know how to answer them. I didn't know asking when I could get my key or where exactly to pay rent was a complicated issue, but for these people it must be. My advice is to turn right around and keep looking at other places.