Case Studies
6M to 7A
When we first signed up for EMPOWER NY, we had two buildings in NYC’s 7A program. Were are not sure if it was the late certifications, high number of violations, types of maintenance issues, tenant complaints, or any combination thereof that got us into the program but either way, administration of the buildings was taken away from us and the rents were collected by NYC for repairs.
At the time, we had hundreds of complaints and violations issued a month and we simply could not keep up. To make things worse, NYC’s Emergency Repair Program crews were arriving at our properties almost daily; performing work that – had we even known about it – we would have done using our own vendors at a fraction of the cost. Our field managers could not keep up with repairs and we started losing track of repair statuses, inventory, and vendors.
It was obvious that we were on a bad path that only led to one destination: losing our buildings.
Enter EMPOWER NY. You could immediately see the difference. We didn’t receive any less complaints or violations, it’s just that now the information was presented in a smart – cost saving way. For example, if we received a plumbing violation for apartment 4A, EMPOWER NY presented all other work needed to be done in 4A or even all plumbing related work needed to be done in the same building. Having this information helped us get better rates from our vendors, correct issues faster, and easily stay ahead of the curve.
EMPOWER NY’s work order system allows us to not only quickly and easily create work orders, but to also better track work progress.
Since we started with EMPOWER NY, we have worked hard – removing 655 violations in 60 days! Our buildings are no longer in the 7A program and our 6.5 million dollar investment was saved.
Lead & Tiles
Ipride myself in running a responsible and responsive property management operation. So when we received an EMPOWER email notification on March 13th 2009 that HPD has issued 10 Lead violations for Apt 2K in one of our buildings, we did everything by the book: we immediately contacted the tenant to schedule the repairs. But the tenant would not grant our crew access to the apartment. We didn’t have a lot of options so we continued to try to gain access to the apartment and filed for a postponement so that we would be granted more time to correct the violations.
Time was ticking and our certification due date was getting closer, but the tenant would not grant access to perform the repairs.
Our properties are well maintained and we rarely receive violations from HPD, so we were especially frustrated to not be able to take care of these issues.
Sure enough, our certification date of 4/29/09 past. Within a few days, we received an email notification from EMPOWER NY alerting us to the fact that HPD has dispatched an emergency repair crew to my property to do the work and authorized $27,745 for payment to this crew!
I quickly called my contractor and told him to meet me at the property ASAP. We spoke with the tenant and promised to retile her bathroom if she just let our crew in to repair the lead issues. Within a few hours the emergency repair crew arrived at the building. I simply told them the work has begun and we did not require their services.
HPD later sued for access but I simply produced the paperwork from my vendor that the work was completed which, thanks to EMPOWER NY’s online file system, was easily quickly found. Case dismissed.
The city was going to do work in my property and without my knowledge for over $35,000 (after the 15% administration fee and tax), but thanks to the early warning from EMPOWER, My cost? Under $12,000! (and that includes a sparkling new bathroom).
