FirstKey Homes

I am a single mother of 4 and disabled veteran. I moved into a First Key Homes property in September 2022. The following is a timeline of events since I've been here.

*FKH is First Key Homes

May 2023:

After noticing random wet spots in the living room (1st floor), I contacted FKH Maintenance regarding a 'water intrusion' as they called it in the maintenance request.

First Key Homes sent out a maintenance worker who then made a referral to have a siding specialist come out to check the property.

Over the next 5 months, I had very little communication with FKH. Eventually, they assign a siding specialist to locate the problem. He concluded that the exterior of the home was not the cause of the problem.

The foundation specialist ruled out any issues as well.

October 2023:

Unable to locate the cause of the leak. I was told by First Key Homes to contact them should the issue return. Ticket was 'resolved' and closed.

January 10th, 2024:

Sometime in the evening, the laundry room begins to flood. FKH maintenance was called. An emergency ticket was created.

Due to the uncertainty of the situation and the cause of the issue, I chose to put my family in a hotel the first night.

The next day (1/11) a technician comes to inspect. He determines, after a very brief visual inspection, that the problem is the washing machine. I informed him that the washing machine was recently purchased and professionally installed and had not been used since the prior weekend. Without permission, the technician proceeds to take the hoses to 'prevent further flooding' and leaves the home to wait for 'approval to start repairs'.

Assuming the issue was the washing machine as previously reported, we checked out of the hotel and returned home. Shortly after, my son flushes the toilet and instantly the laundry room begins to flood. The ceiling downstairs starts dripping, it looks like its literally raining in the house. Brown water, I might add. I located the water shut-off valve and turned the water off. Something the technician should have done or at least shown me how to do just in case it was not the washing machine, which was in fact the case.

I sent a text to the technician who then stated he would have to come back and cut *** in the ceiling, suspecting that it was a plumbing issue, like I previously suggested.

I call FKH. They 'escalate' the ticket to include a request for hotel accommodations. I did not have the money to pay for another hotel at that time so my children stayed with their grandmother and I slept in the home.

The 'water extraction' was set to take place on Saturday. That morning the technician called out citing problems with his vehicle. Stating he would return Monday. This was on Saturday.

Over the next 3 days, I made over 20+ calls to FKH. Requesting hotel accommodations, call-backs, and escalating tickets. The sewer water was literally sitting, soaking into the carpet, baseboards, ceiling fixtures, and drywall. The extraction did not take place until the following week.

Having no access to running water as well as sewage soaking through everything, my family was forced to stay in a hotel during this time.

Every day checking out of the room with the hopes that the hotel requests would be addressed and repairs would be approved. I called every day and received absolutely no response.

January 16th, 2024:

I receive a text message from the contractor stating that he has been approved to begin repairs.

FKH calls and emails to inform me of this as well. There is no mention of hotel accommodations, although we are still unable to reside in the home.

During repairs the home is in utter disarray. The carpet smells, the upstairs bathroom sewer pipes are exposed, the baseboards have brown staining and water damage upstairs/downstairs, the laminate flooring in the laundry room has started to warp, there is drywall dust and debris everywhere. The home is inhabitable, but still no response from FKH regarding hotel accommodations.

January 17th

We are told repairs are complete. Move back home again. The sewer pipes are still exposed downstairs but were just happy to have running water. My children come home later that evening after school/practice. My son gets in the shower and the flooding ensues.

Its 8pm, were back packing our bags and looking for another hotel.

January 18th

The contractor returns to locate the leak. Says he is waiting on approval to replace the baseboards carpet and build back the drywall that was cut away, exposing the sewage pipes. He also states that we will try to get up some of the water from the new flooding.

January 19th

We attempt to go home again. This time were dealing with the exposed pipes the nasty carpet and baseboards, but the leaking has stopped however, upon running the water, we noticed that there is no hot water. We called to report this to *FKH as well as the contractor. He informed us that the approval to inspect the water heater would need to come from *FKH, however they did not respond so he could not come and look at it.

We ended up going back to the hotel.

The following day, the contractor reached out to let us know he was still waiting on approval for the water heater. He stated his frustration in getting approval from *FKH.

January 21st

The contractor offered to try a temporary fix until *FKH approves the repairs of water heater. At that time he discovered that due to the amount flooding some type of electrical wire or fuse blown causing it to stop working. He ordered the parts but said they would take a few days.

January 23rd

The build back of the drywall begins. Although we requested new carpet due to the amount of sewage that say for days, *FKH decided a shampoo was sufficient. They approved the contractor to paint over the brown stained base boards and fought back on replacing the laminate floor in the laundry room which had warped. Eventually they agreed to replace the baseboards and laminate but not the carpet.

We are in a hotel during the repairs.

January 25th

The water heater is now operating and the build back is taking place. We move back home.

January 29th

The areas that were approved in the build back are complete.

At this time I begin to focus on reimbursement for hotel accommodations. I ask for a credit on the next months rent and again escalate the ticket as this request has never been addressed.

I received an email from Kellee Cummings,requesting I upload copies of my receipts to be forwarded to the District Manager, Natalie Jones. I send over the documents.

February 5th

I received an email from *FKH stating that my ticket was resolved and closed. When asked why, I was told there were days missing from the hotel invoices so the claim was denied. I requested that it be reviewed again.

February 6th

I received an email from District Manager, Natalie Jones. I dont believe she meant to hit reply all but nevertheless, she states the following:

Natalie Jones (FirstKey Homes)

Feb 6, 2024, 5:55PM EST

Once you have the rest of the receipts and the explanation of why it shows that I checked them in, let me know and I will look at all of it and determine a response. Natalie A Jones |Property Manager

FirstKey Homes, LLC

9233 Ward Parkway | Suite 324 | Kansas City, MO 64114Direct: 816.523.1738 | Fax: 816-523-****

To which I responded,

Ashleigh Williams

Feb 6, 2024, 6:51PM EST

I will resend the invoices when I get to my laptop but for N. Jones to assume that she is the only person with those initials is absolutely ridiculous. Tell her to call the hotel and ask if they have an employee with the same initials before demanding an explanation from the resident!

She dropped the ball and failed to return my calls and respond to urgent requests in a timely manner. This is not my fault. Demanding an explanation like I need to lie about the fact that we were homeless due to property management dropping the ball.

I should sue. This is crazy.

Ashleigh Williams.

-End-

N. Jones then replied, stating that she did not drop the ball, she was on vacation when this request initially came in.

Furthermore, she was denying my accommodations due to the fact that I did not receive prior authorization from her.

I am almost certain she denied it due to her offense to my previous email.

I continued to call everyday, despite her refusal to acknowledge where *FKH dropped the ball. I was determined to speak to someone above N.Jones. I threatened legal action. She then agreed to reimburse the hotels accommodations. She offers to reimburse less than half of the amount I paid. Around, $450 when I was out over $1000 and rent was now due for the next month. I refused the settlement amount and continued to press the issue hoping to go over her head.

February 16th

I received the following email from N. Jones, from *FKH:

Natalie Jones (FirstKey Homes)

Feb 16, 2024, 6:14PM EST

Good Afternoon Ashleigh,

Thank you for your patience while I researched this situation.

After researching your work orders and your request for reimbursement for hotel stays, your request has been denied due to Resident Responsibility per your lease agreement.

I was later charged an additional $1500 for all plumbing repairs and build back. Not only was the offer to reimburse taken back, she now claimed I was responsible for the plumbing issue.

These absurd charges were added to the rent. Due to their payment policy, I was unable to pay the rent without paying for repairs although the repairs were in dispute. I refused to pay for the repairs until the account was reviewed. I requested a review of every ticket going back to May 23.

April 2024

I called back to escalate the ticket requesting the account review. My account was now in eviction status due to non payment.

Still, no response to the ticket or to multiple emails to Kellee Cummings and Natalie Jones.

At this time, I now owe 2 months of rent and the representatives will not take a payment for anything less than the full amount for rent and repairs.

I continue to call and email *FKH about accommodations and possible credits or reimbursement.

April 16th

I receive the following email from N.Jones:

Good Afternoon Ashleigh,

We have previously discussed the hotel accommodation, and it was denied. We will not be crediting your account for hotel accommodations.

Warm Regards,

Kind Regards,

Natalie Jones, your FirstKey Homes Property Manager

April 17th

I spoke to a *FKH representative pertaining the charge back for repairs. I was informed that the account was now in eviction status. After reading thru the account, he agreed that we were not responsible and removed the charges.

I was finally, after 2 months, able to pay just the past due rent.

I made a payment of $6392.20.

*FKH accepted responsibility for the plumbing repairs. However, they continue to deny my hotel accommodations for various reasons, from the repairs being resident responsibility, not seeking prior authorization, and finally my refusal to accept partial payment.

On the morning of 4/21 the exact same plumbing issue that was repaired in January began flooding again.

So here I am dealing with the same issue all over agin. I reached out to the previous repairman, who stated that they have not been paid for the first job and are unable to assist.

During this entire ordeal, I lost my job due to absences. Ive had to throw away furniture and borrow money to pay rent and stay in hotels. This has had a tremendous effect on my mental health and financial stability.

First Key Homes is horrible. I wouldnt recommend this company to anyone.

Please, if you are in the market to rent a home, bypass this company and save yourself the headache.

Natalie Jones, you should be ashamed of yourself. You are a true representation of the company that employs you. The way you handled this situation is a further testament to negative reviews the company has on several sites.

Shame on you all. The amount of complaints against you all screams class action lawsuit and I hope they includes Natalie Jones.

***I have documented all interactions with *FKH and its affiliates. Proof of the statements made above are available upon request.

We are currently fighting to get our deposit back because of the absolutely terrible repairs done by their maintenance workers. I've attached photos that clearly show the problems and the garbage work they did.

This company is an absolute joke! Good luck getting anything fixed, and when they finally do, it's the worst quality repair you can imagine. I paid over $2,000 in rent only to have my ice maker break and remain unfixed for six months, despite multiple visits from their incompetent repair people. The water line broke in the garage, and they did a janky job that looked like it was done by amateurs.

When I moved out, they tried to charge me for that same janky drywall repair! The same thing happened in the spare bathroom — water everywhere — and they attempted to take that out of my security deposit too. They hired a roofing company to do our roof without even informing us, so I woke up to random men in a truck in my driveway at 7 in the morning. I tried to get the gutter that blew off during the hurricane put back on, but that repair ticket went completely unnoticed.

The gutter is still not fixed after a year! If you have females under 18 in your home, beware! They hire some sketchy people who check out underage girls while in the home. I recorded the whole encounter, and they never fired the repairman.

This company has been an absolute headache to deal with. Not to mention, they raise your rent every year of your lease.

Do yourself a favor and rent from someone else or another company. You’ll thank yourself later!

Do not rent. FirstKey Homes cause health issues. In May 2024, a FirstKey home in Lawrenceville, Georgia that my girlfriend rented experienced septic/sewage back up. This caused the two toilets in the house to overflow with raw sewage that leaked into the hallways, master bedroom, closet, and through the carpet/baseboard underneath the house to the slab. This sewage was not disinfected, and new carpeting was just placed over the dry soiled baseboard. We had to pay to have mold/sewage inspectors come and run tests. The tests showed that the sewage bacteria in the house was far beyond the habitable amount. This bacteria caused us to come down with a slew of respiratory issues that we are still dealing with after moving from that house. Detailed reports can be provided upon request. FirstKey does not care about the quality of the home, only that they can rent it.

We had to stay in a hotel until the issue was fixed. That stay started around the end of May 2024 until the beginning of July 2024. FirstKey charged rent for a home that was uninhabitable and has not reimbursed us for the cost of staying in the hotel. Once notified that the 'repairs' were completed in the beginning of July, we started to experience various respiratory issues. This led us to have a professional inspect the mold/sewage bacteria levels in the house. It was determined that the sewage bacteria levels in the house were far beyond the habitable threshold. Reports can be provided upon request.

We are still waiting for a resolution from FirstKey. We have moved everything that was not soiled in the house, but a majority of the items had to be left in the house as they were soiled with sewage bacteria. Please do not rent from FirstKey Homes. We have experienced financial hardship due to the lack of care from FirstKey Homes. I just want to share information that companies like FirstKey Homes do not care about your health or safety, they only care if you pay them rent each month.

Do not rent from FirstKey Homes!

First Key is extremely unprofessional and impersonal with the way they treat their tenants. We are a 26-year veteran family, having served in the Marines and the Army, with many deployments and moved around to many places.

We have had to deal with arrogant people throughout the years we have lived in a First Key home. Brittany from maintenance refused to listen to us when we begged for someone to fix things in our home, saying according to her maintenance person had nothing wrong with them. We finally reached one kind person who sent out a head maintenance person after many complaints. They found out that one of our complaints, the shaking fan, was actually broken and almost fell out of the ceiling onto our child.

When asking for help in a broken home, you should not be treated like you are the problem. Brittany was happy to assure me that we have 3,000 homes, making us feel that they are much too busy to help everyone as though they truly matter. We are very thankful for the one person who we found in the company willing to help, but it took almost a year to find her. We moved into a complete dump, dirty and not maintained.

The outside was overgrown. The entire house and carpet were garbage, and we were told it was resident responsibility. Now, it is time to renew our lease, and the rent increase went up 14% without any discussion. We are expected to come up with an extra $305 or move.

First Key has stated, 'Some of the policies and fees in our lease document have changed to best serve you.' We do not feel that adding $305 to our rent is best serving. Due to the massive rent increase and poor treatment, we have decided to move from our First Key home. Now, we are currently getting the runaround on our deposit. We are being told to clean carpets which were disgusting when we moved in.

We've been sent a list of potential charges that add up to thousands of dollars. This home is currently in a massively better condition than when we found it, but we will have to fight tooth and nail to get our deposit back. To treat a veteran that has deployed many times and his family with small children like this is absolutely unacceptable. As hard-working, responsible adults, it is extremely discouraging to be treated as a number, and completely impersonally throughout the last year and move-out process.

Stay away from First Key homes. They say, 'We're proud to serve families and residents like you, making our homes their own and building communities one caring experience at a time.' This will never be your experience.

I have rented from them since 2018, and my rent is current, by the way. My complaint is that their phone number and email system aren't designed to serve their residents.

Most recently, I have been charged erroneously on their part. I pay rent through an app, no real person; it is charging me fees for not having rental insurance when I have had it since February. I pay on time, but it charged me $100 in late fees because it didn't take from my bank on the day I paid it on the app. They overcharged me; I didn't have enough in the bank to cover the extra, so they returned the payment and charged me a late fee and NSF fee.

This happened two months in a row. Nobody called me to let me know if there was any issue; I found out the hard way. I make sure my rent is paid, but I do without and am broke afterward for a week or two usually, so when they play games with my amount due and my bank account, it's a big problem for me. I should at least be able to talk to a real person about it.

The app doesn't accept any less than it shows, so I have to pay this extra stuff to avoid more fees, that said I feel the proper thing to do is for first key homes to reimburse me , and for someone to fix the problem causing this.

If not within 7 days, I will make sure the news channels social media Google and review sites hear about First Key Homes' lack of customer care. I thank you in advance for prompt resolution assuming that happens.

I paid my rent for the month of March, which was 1931.00, and that left a balance of 0. When it was time to sign my renewal, they said that I couldn't sign until I paid 792.60.

Where did that 792.60 come from? I don't know, but I couldn't sign my lease renewal until I paid it. Now they are charging me month to month with an extra 500 dollar fee. When I talked to customer service, they couldn't tell us where this bill came from.

They sent us a printout of our past bills, and it showed the 792.60 as rental insurance, and everyone knows that you have to have rental insurance when you stay in any establishment. If you don't have any, they will add it to your rent, which in my case, I have been paying FirstKey Homes 30 a month for rental insurance.

This leads back to my case: where did the 792.60 come from? Now my rent has gone up tremendously, and I have never gone without a month without paying my rent.

If I had the option to leave a zero-star review, I absolutely would! My experience with First Key Homes over the past six years has been nothing short of disappointing, and I would never recommend them to anyone.

After six years of being a loyal tenant, they made the decision to sell the home I was living in without any prior communication beyond a single certified mail letter. No phone call, no email, no courtesy to inform me directly or discuss my options. The complete lack of transparency and communication was both frustrating and unprofessional. When I reached out to request an extension to properly prepare for my move, they begrudgingly granted me only two additional weeks at an outrageously high cost.

Instead of showing consideration for a long-term tenant, they chose to exploit the situation by demanding an unreasonable amount of money for just two extra weeks of residence. This company lacks integrity, professionalism, and basic human decency. They do not value their residents, only their bottom line. If you are considering renting from them, I strongly urge you to do extensive research before signing anything.

Their unethical practices and disregard for tenant well-being make them an absolute nightmare to deal with. Save yourself the frustration, stress, and financial burden; do not waste your time or money with First Key Homes!

I am currently a resident in Arizona without AC for the past 13 days. They are fully aware of this and have yet to contact me about the next steps.

I cannot get through to anyone; everyone states, 'I will request a call back.' I asked to speak with a supervisor, and they absolutely refused to get me one. Their calls are recorded, so I cannot wait if or when it goes to court. Maintenance will not call me back; I have requested a portable unit at least five times. I have three young children and dogs.

Some of us do not have close support where we can go and stay. As a property management company, I expected more. I have filed a complaint with the BBB, given a five-day notice to repair, and am currently seeking a lawyer.

Alerting the media is going to be my next step very shortly. They have not given me any accommodations or made any offers.

The first house we applied for was what attracted us to FirstKey homes in the first place. It was a nice, new home with lots of space and new carpet.

So, we started the application process! We were actually approved eventually, but after getting passed back and forth between the application personnel and the underwriters, FirstKey rented the home to another renter without a word to us. We were instructed to review their other homes, as we'd already been approved and there would be no risk of "losing" another one like this. That is, if we paid a fee.

And that's pretty common for a business, fees. But, for FKH, it is their bread and butter. There are endless amounts of arbitrary and predatory fees. But that's not even the problem - I know business exist to make money, so my argument is not with that.

We had local agents assigned to help us find a home, and of those 2 or three assigned to us, we never met one of them. You must tour the home yourself, pay to reserve it, then pay to rent it. IF you get there in time.

The house we decided upon had a few issues, which we addressed with the "Walkthrough Coordinator" or whatever the title was - A walkthrough we'd already performed ourselves, since most of these houses are self-tours (also a paid service). We pointed out, as we were asked, that there were some items that needed repair or attention, namely dead mice on sticky paper in the walk-in attic, and a large water spot from an obvious leak in the ceiling of the master bathroom.

5 months later, no maintenance crew. There were 2 men in the house in the week leading up to move-in date to do "Repairs." These repairs including scabbing the gutters to the house with jagged pieces of metal flashing, and crushing the gutters to get them to fit together. The walkthrough agent almost left without giving us the second key - and he didn't show us where anything was. He'd obviously never been in the house himself.

Now, there's trying to pay rent.

Only call this organization if you have several hours to be routed through their impossibly, woefully inadequate call center that is very obviously an outsourced function in another country. None of these people are equipped to provide you with any kind of service. Your support ticket on the portal will go unanswered as well, but their system will reflect that it has been closed.

I am unable to pay rent using the phone app they encourage everyone to use. I am unable to pay rent using the phone portal they encourage everyone to use.

My only option is walk-in-payment at the grocery store or Wal-Mart now, which is actually cheaper, but inconvenient. And that's fine, but I just spent 8+ hours out of two days trying to get my rent paid with the call center, the app, the automated phone line - and ultimately, my final customer service confrontation was with a Payment Specialist named Alejandro who advised me to borrow someone's card to pay... and pay them back. What kind of solution is this?

I just want to pay my rent and not have to deal with this.

... And to wrap it up, we are in month 5 and still haven't had a maintenance crew out to do anything about the sheetrock. Or the rotting mice.

But we cleaned that up. Thanks FirstKey homes!

I can't wait for the contract to end and to have FirstKey in my rearview mirror.

I will never recommend FirstKey to friends, family, or even my enemies.

The most nightmarish renting experience I've ever had.

I'm a new renter with FirstKey Homes. Let me tell you about how the first two weeks have gone.

We've opened 4 maintenance requests so far. Only 1 of them was fully resolved. Our refrigerator has not been acting right since we moved in. It will not cool down to the proper temperature despite having done everything the maintenance workers suggested like defrosting the fridge and installing a new water filter.

It's also not making ice. BTW, neither of the workers really helped us - they fixed nothing. This means we have not had a working refrigerator and icemaker for over TWO WEEKS. The fridge is toast - we need a new one.

I just opened my THIRD maintenance request and they said they escalated it. Our service call is scheduled for a WEEK from now. When I tried contacting the FirstKey Homes support team for some extra assistance getting the maintenance request moved up sooner, they said I reached the wrong department and sent me back to the maintenance request center - the same center that scheduled the service call for a week from now. I can't call the local office because they won't share that phone number with me.

Besides the house being filthy when we moved in, one of the shower drains being clogged, the garage door not working properly, the refrigerator & icemaker not working for over two weeks is completely unacceptable. Their support team sucks.

No one is willing to help, they just keep sending me to other departments. I wish I had researched FirstKey Homes better because I would NOT have rented from them if I had known their service and homes were such garbage.

Ive only been at my property for five months now I have been through nothing but *** and heartache. There were repairs I addressed before I moved in.

My neighbor is part of the HOA. He also addressed some concerns with me a few times in October I contact the Firstkey Homes over 20 times, they put in tickets, requesting property manager Angela to call me. She never did after three months she finally gave me a call in January told me that she will make sure the repairs get taken care of and I will not be charged for them and said she will call me back within a week. Its been three months now she still hasnt called me eventually, the city came Code enforcement they notice additional repairs and some concrete and mailbox and the fence yard they did fine Firstkey I just received a 10 day notice in the mail in regards to the HOA violations.

They are trying to retaliate and hold me accountable for these repairs and charges. Again I contacted Firstkey Homes they put in multiple tickets and requested again and I contacted the manager Angela she has not still called me back. I tried paying my rent on Friday, but they told me I would have to pay the full balance, including the HOA and other fees they added towards my account. They are trying to force me to pay these fees and hold me accountable I cannot pay my rent unless I pay all the fees This company is a pure blunt scammer.

They found a professional legal way to do it. I recently contacted an attorney to take them to court Im trying to move. I refuse to do business with the company. They dont care about tenants they dont expect their homes they are money hungry business they will put extra charges on your account they are unorganized all they do is email.

They force you to pay your utilities through them, and charge you a fee for that and they WILL NOT call you back.

When I received the HOA letters there was no contact number on there and they misspelled my name. This company is a fraud a predator scam and need to be EXPOSED and face criminally charges I cant believe this is a legit business, that is getting away with this