I'm running into some difficulty with the new property manager for my apartment complex in Washington state.
I broke one of the rules that weren't ever enforced in the past five years I lived here. I knew what the rule was, it was in the contract. I was notified of the infraction in letter stuck in my door. I was told I had 10 days to correct the issue before I got evicted.
A few months later, I get a call from the property manager "kindly reminding" me that I owed $75. They told me it was part of a "service fee" of $25 dollars that had been accruing since I was originally notified of the infraction. They wanted to "help" remind me so that I could pay it before they had to charge me another fee for not paying the accrued amount.
The fee wasn't mentioned in the original note. Supposedly it had been delivered by the same means at a later date. I did not get this note so the call was a surprised to me. I checked the contract and verified that it didn't mention anything regarding a fee (An accruing fee with late charges would have stood out to me, I read the whole thing). It wasn't until I mentioned the contract that the manager dropped the fee altogether and apologized.
I guess I'm not the only tenant that caught on to this because yesterday everyone at the apartments got a note informing them that they would implement a service fee of $25. Can a property manager circumvent the contract by leaving a memo at a tenants door?
I'm not entirely sure where this question belongs. As they can pretty much hold my credit score hostage I thought I might try posting it here.