Changing Management Companies Is A Pain

Last Friday, I fired my property management company and hired a new one. Unfortunately, my contract stated that I have to give 30 days notice that I am canceling the contract. I had hoped that they would not enforce that, since they are not making any money from me. I don't pay them a monthly fee is the property is vacant and it is, so there is really no point in them holding on to the contract - unless they think they can get it rented in the next 30 days and, given that they haven't been able to do that in the prior 5 months, I don't think they can.

So in my fax on Friday, I asked them for written confirmation that they would release me from the contract. I have not received it. I called them on Tuesday and left a message requesting that. I called them again today. The owner is deliberately avoiding my calls now, since she was in but when the receptionist got my name, she was suddenly unavailable. So again, I explained what I wanted. The receptionist said they normally don't put any cancellations in writing and they just have to wait for the 30 day period to be up. I explained it made no sense for them to enforce the 30 day period. The lady said she would again talk to the owner and request written confirmation so that I could hire another property management company. She said even if they did waive the 30 days, they could only give the keys to the new managers. I would still have to wait 30 days for my deposit to be refunded. Sounds like a bunch of bull to me.