Salon owners’ former landlord disputes couples’ claims

The owner of Cobblestone Fiesta business center, Harry Graham of Thousand Oaks, Calif., called InMaricopa to dispute several statements made by two of his former tenants, Sharon and Tobin Gentry, who recently moved their hair salon business, Purity Salon and Spa, from Cobblestone to a new location at the Maricopa Business Center.

In a story published Aug. 18, the Gentrys said they relocated their business because the property manager, Arcadia Management Group Inc., wanted to increase the rent in the middle of their contract term and had back-billed them for nearly $10,000 in common area maintenance (CAM) fees and another $10,000 in past-due rent without notifying them.

The Gentrys said they believed they were current, and the notice was a surprise to them.

“You can’t pay something if you don’t know you owe it,” Tobin said.

The Gentrys said they were advised by their attorney to move out, as trying to fight the management company would cost too much money. They relocated their business to 44480 W. Honeycutt Road and changed the name to House of Gentry.

Graham said he was in the process of lowering their rent before they had moved out. In the past, the property owner said he had forgiven CAM charges owed by the couple when they got behind.

When the Gentrys bought the business from the former owners there was a pay schedule for the rent and CAM charges, the property owner told InMaricopa.

“It was stated in the original lease,” he said. “CAM fees are just like taxes, you have to pay them.”

Graham said he realizes the economy is bad and had worked with the Gentrys, as he does with all his tenants, to come up with a lease agreement that was within their means.

“I’ve been a property owner for many years,” he said. “I try to deal with people well. I’ve never had a tenant that disliked me. I’m trying to do the right thing all the time.”

He said the Gentrys started out with reduced rent payments that were to increase incrementally. Then, in February 2010, he agreed to an addendum for lower payments to the Gentrys’ lease, because even with reduced rent they had gotten behind.

Graham said the Gentrys are the ones in the wrong by moving out, but plans no legal action against them.

“What we came to is the ‘move out in the middle of the night’ type of thing,” he said.  “To me, that’s not just wrong but criminal. They were taking a lot of money from me over years out of my kindness.”

Four different companies have managed Cobblestone Fiesta in the past two and a half years, with Arcadia taking over on July 1, Graham said. The first company went bankrupt, the second was a good company but tried to manage Cobblestone from California with unsatisfactory results and the third, Guardian Real Estate Services, assigned a property manager to Cobblestone with no background in commercial real estate after the original person left to work for another company.

Graham said he is pleased with Arcadia and intends to keep them.

“I checked them out and they are a good company,” he said. “They (the Gentrys) may think this is a big mega-company that doesn’t care, but Arcadia has a person that lives there in Maricopa looking over center all the time.”

Tobin said Arcadia was very aggressive, demanding they pay nearly $20,000 in five to seven days or be locked out. They also were told their rent would go up $1,000 a month beginning in January, and they would have no opportunity to discuss the increase with Graham until the beginning of the year.

Along with the demand of $20,000 on short notice, the Gentrys thought it was unfair to be forced to agree to monthly payments they already knew they wouldn’t be able to pay. Their only alternative, Tobin said, was to move out.

Tobin said Arcadia had failed to honor an agreement made by Guardian that was authorized by Graham not to raise their rent in 2012. He provided a copy of the email to InMaricopa, and Graham acknowledged he did make the agreement.