Berger Properties

Aug 18th, 2018

My partner moved from the Netherlands to West Philly to pursue a PhD. He lived in Camelot Apartments near Drexel University and had neighbor issues (which is absolutely not a Berger issue) AND a consistent roach problem (which absolutely is). I have lived in Philadelphia as a flat broke 18 year old and even the hole-in-the-wall apartments I had as a kid weren't as infested as this was. Since the living conditions weren't great, my partner inquired started to look into breaking his lease. English isn't his first language, and he wanted to confirm what the legal language in his lease was asking of him. He emailed the President of Berger Real Estate Investment to clarify, and he was told that he need only pay out his last month's rent. My partner asked if he would need to pay out the rest of his rent, and Arnold Berger confirmed that he did not. Seems pretty straight forward, right? He's foreign, he's never lived out of his parents house before (let alone rented a property by himself 3000 miles from home), so he wanted to specifically clarify the legal terms of his lease before he made a decision that could put him almost 2k in the hole (which is a LOT of money when you're a student just trying to live on a PhD stipend.) My partner received a letter on April 25 saying that he would not receive his security deposit back to cover for the remaining months of his lease. Either Mr. Berger didn't understand the legal terms or the English of his own lease (doubtful) or he knowingly scammed almost 2k off of a kid. Do not waste your time with a company that runs their business dishonestly. If they did this, they're doing other shady stuff, and there's plenty of other well-run rental properties all over the tristate area that don't pull the wool over people's eye to make a buck.
Nov 26th, 2017