Sun-Surf Realty

Notified 3 weeks prior to vacation that house was no longer available.Only offered refund or lesser alternatives.Did not refund interest account accruWe booked a home, [redacted], back in January for our August vacation (August 16th-23rd). The company notified us three weeks before our vacation that the home was under construction due to structural issues and was no longer available. Our only two options were a refund or to move to a different home that was not remotely comparable to the home we originally booked. As you can imagine, the only homes that are left at the end of the summer are those that no one else is interested in renting! None of the alternatives met the same criteria of the home we originally booked. The company, including the owner, were unapologetic that our vacation had been ruined. They did absolutely nothing to go above and beyond to make the situation right for us. They also accepted our final deposit at the beginning of July, which was AFTER the company knew the home was under construction, yet they failed to tell us and took our money anyway. Had Sun-Surf Realty contacted us earlier in the summer when construction originally began, we may have been able to make acceptable alternative arrangements. However, they did not have the decency to inform us that there was even a possibility that alternate arrangements might be necessary. We requested a full refund including the interest their company profited from while our deposit was sitting in their interest-bearing account, but they of course only gave us our original deposited amount. I would caution ANYONE from renting through this company. I would hate for any individual or their family to experience the heartache and stress of a ruined vacation that we have endured this year. This is the one week out of the year that my family gets to spend together, and Sun-Surf Realty robbed us of that this year because of their blatant disrespect for their clients and unprofessional and unresponsive owner. For a realty company in a tourist community, I expected a lot more.Desired SettlementInterest refunded; No explanation was ever provided regarding why interest was not refunded given they fraudulently held our money for months while profiting from it AND knowingly withheld information from us, preventing us from getting our money back sooner.Business Response To Whom It May Concern,Regarding complaint filed by [redacted] Case #[redacted]We are terribly sorry that we did not address the reason that we did not return interest on the monies paid by Ms. [redacted]. The reason is that our bank does not pay interest on the trust account into which her rental payments were deposited. We would also like to apologize once again to Ms. [redacted] and her family. The deck at the home that she rented was deemed unsafe and the construction process went beyond the completion date that was provided to Sun-Surf Realty. We notified Ms. [redacted] as soon as we learned that her rental home would not be available due to the construction completion delay. Respectfully,[redacted]Rental Manager Emerald Isle, NCCome for a Week...Stay for a Lifetime!Rentals: [redacted] or [redacted]

I rented a cottage through Sun-Surf realty. Cottage was dirty, could not be locked, and AC broke and was not fixed.I rented a cottage at Emerald Isle, NC through Sun-Surf Realty. Rental reservation was confirmed on 2/5/2016. Total payment was 2381.89. It was paid in 2 installments. Second payment was due before 7/7/2016. Cottage was rented for week of 8/6/16 until 8/13/2016. Upon at 3 pm on 8/6, cottage was found to be filthy. There was blood on the bathroom floor. Vomit in another bathroom. The kitchen smelled of vomit. In addition, there was a dustpan discarded in a sofa along with its contents. The floors were very dirty and none of the bathrooms had been cleaned. The kitchen cabinets were also dirty. I called Sun Surf and they sent out a cleaning crew of 3 people at 4:30pm. I left while they were sweeping the kitchen. When I returned home, only the kitchen had been swept. Nothing else had been cleaned. I cleaned the blood off bathroom floor. My daughter and I wiped down all the bathroom faucets and handles. We also wiped down the kitchen pulls and faucet. I used the vacuum I found at cottage to vacuum first floor. I was very disgusted by the body fluids and filth. I was also very upset I had subjected my family to this. I emailed Sun Surf and on Sunday they sent another cleaning crew. This cleaning crew brought supplies including a vacuum. The cottage was completely cleaned and they did a fantastic job. However, the vomit had lingered in the kitchen so long the kitchen smelled of vomit the rest of our vacation. On Sunday evening when we returned to cottage we found the AC was broken on the first floor and discovered one of the doors to the outside could not be locked. I called emergency maintenance at around 7pm. After giving my name, phone, address, I was told I would be called back. I was not called back Sunday evening. Called at 9am Monday morning to report lock and AC. I was informed lock technician was not reachable and that unlocked door was a known issue. Door could not be locked and would have to remain unlocked as it had been since the end of July. I was assured AC repair was on the way. The AC was a heat pump and I could see that it was frozen with around an inch of ice on one of the outdoor pipes. AC repair man arrived at 4:30 pm Monday. He put freon in unit. By 9 pm AC was frozen and broken again. I emailed Sun Surf that evening re: broken AC and unlocked door. At the time I was hopeful AC was repaired but it was 85 degrees on the floor with 3 of 4 bedrooms. I also indicated that door needed to be secured even if it couldn't be fixed. Tuesday morning called Sun-Surf again (after calling 4 times Monday). I demanded a box fan or window AC or something to help cool first floor. I also reiterated that the door needed to be secured. At around 10 am Tuesday received email from Sun-Surf that they had a window AC unit, but since there were 3 bedrooms they wanted me to tell them which bedroom to install it in. At 1pm Tuesday window unit for one bedroom was installed. The house was rented for over $2300 and they can only install one window AC for a broken AC in a house advertised as having central AC! At 3 pm spoke to [redacted] from Sun Surf. She told me the owner had authorized moving us to another cottage. I asked her 3 times to email me my options she refused. The call was repeatedly dropped but I did talk to the reservation specialist and she had a cottage that was smaller and much further from the beach if I wanted to be safe. I did not want to be so far from the beach- I paid over $2300 to be close to the beach. She told me I could call other rental companies in the area to try to find something. Tuesday night I called [redacted] Windows and told them about the lock since it was an [redacted] door. The lock was fixed within 24 hours of calling [redacted]. Sun-Surf told me the piece was on back order and it couldn't be fixed. [redacted] told me locks are a priority and they had the part in stock. Both told me the other company was lying. Left email and voice mail message for owner of company, he did not return either message.Desired SettlementThe cottage was very expensive in my opinion. I feel that with that expense the cottage should come as advertised- clean, working central AC, and lockable. I rented from a company I had rented from before because I trusted them to provide my family and me with a safe, comfortable, and clean cottage. However, a lot of things went wrong. And when things went wrong the company was not prompt in fixing them. The cleaning was horrible enough, but at least they fixed as well as they could at that point. They refused to fix the AC and until I called [redacted] they refused to fix the lock. This is not the type of response I expect at a beach cottage rental through a company. I expect a refund of at least $1190, which is half of the price of the rental.Business Response On Saturday, 8/6 Mrs. [redacted] checked in and called with housekeeping concerns and we immediately responded by sending a housekeeper to address all issues. The housekeeper requested that Mrs. [redacted] walk through the property room-by-room with her to ensure she was satisfied with the housekeeping service. While Mrs. [redacted] pointed out issues which were addressed, there was no mention of vomit or blood.On 8/7, Mrs. [redacted] requested housekeeping to return to the property and we re-cleaned for the second time. After the cleaning, Sun-Surf Realty sent our head housekeeper to inspect the property for any issues. At this time Mrs. [redacted] requested that a rug be cleaned and because it could not be cleaned without damaging the hardwood floors, it was removed. Mrs. [redacted] was satisfied at this time. Mrs. [redacted]'s reported that the air conditioner was not working. The air conditioning unit that was reported as not working was the upper floor unit. A service tech reported that due to the extremely hot temperatures, the air conditioner was working at its full capacity. Sun-Surf Realty delivered a window unit in order to make the guests more comfortable.A report for a door that would not lock was received. The owner had previously ordered a part for this door from [redacted] Corporation. The door would lock from the inside and the guest had several exits other than using this door. Mrs. [redacted] contacted [redacted] Corporation and made threats to include calling media outlets to report them if the part was not provided. [redacted] Corporation contacted Sun-Surf Realty because of Mrs. [redacted]'s call. They later called to say she had posted negative posts on social network. [redacted] Corporation was prepared to do whatever was necessary to repair the door due to the tone and threats made by Mrs. [redacted]. When the service tech arrived at the property, there was no one there and he called our office stating that he was not willing to enter the property by himself because of her threats. Sun-Surf sent maintenance personnel to accompany him.Mrs. [redacted] reported on several occasions that she could not leave the property because the door would not lock, however when the air conditioning tech went to the property, when we delivered the window a/c and when the [redacted] tech arrived, no one was at the property.[redacted], Maintenance Director called Mrs. [redacted] on Tuesday, 8/9 to discuss her complaints. At this time, Mrs. [redacted] offered Mrs. [redacted] two options: 1. The opportunity to check out of the property and receive a full refund (including the 3 nights she had already stayed in the property), 2. Move to another property. She spoke with a Reservationist to discuss Sun-Surf options as well as options with 3 other companies. She stated she did not want to pack up and leave. Mrs. [redacted] called later in the week and requested compensation. When asked what would make her happy, she stated that 85% of her rental rate would be the only acceptable compensation. She was discussing this with a male during the conversation with Mrs. [redacted]. Mrs. [redacted] reminded her that she was offered a full refund as well as the option to move to another property earlier in the week, and she replied she would now be happy with the full refund. At this time, Mrs. [redacted] reminded her that earlier in the week she was offered a full refund if she checked out of the property, however she chose to stay. Statement from [redacted] who witnessed the conversation between Mrs. [redacted] and [redacted] told Mrs. [redacted] that she understands that our guests work very hard and save for their vacation and she wanted her to be happy. She told her that she had spoken with the owner of the property and he had agreed to her moving to another property (and transferring all funds) or checking out and receiving a full refund.Sun-Surf Realty's goal is to make every guest's experience a pleasant one. Unfortunately as it is with a vacation home or a personal home, maintenance issues arise and must be addressed. With each and every call made by Mrs. [redacted], we responded to her needs in a timely manner.Consumer Response Sun Surf's response in no way resolves our complaint. Their response here is upsetting and dishonest; however, it seems consistent with how they address complaints (seeing the complaint from another family on 10/09/2015).We are very disappointed in how all of this has turned out. We have used Sun Surf for years, and really wanted to have a good experience this year. Although they claim to address things in a timely manner, we had to get a door manufacturer to intervene so we could have a lockable door and they never fixed an air conditioner that broke on the second day of our vacation.Now, we must address some of the dishonesty in the report.* We did report the blood on the floor immediately. We even have pictures of it and cleaned it up before the second cleaning crew arrived because we were so disgusted by it.* There was no room-by-room walkthrough of the house with the second housekeeping crew. We were not in the house when they did the cleaning. They arrived, we talked about the condition of the house, and we left the house while they cleaned. We assumed that they would clean the house while we were out.* The removal of the rug by the last cleaning crew had nothing to do with damaging the hardwood floor. The head of housekeeping agreed that it still smelled and was dirty, but said they couldn't clean it. She asked if there was anything they could do about it and we just asked that they removed it for the week. On a side note, we had a good experience with the last cleaning crew, felt they did all they could (even though the smell of vomit lingered), and the head of housekeeping was very professional.* The broken air conditioner was on the first floor, not the upper floor.* There is no way the service tech said the air conditioner was working at capacity. Its pipes were frozen because of the lack of freon. We spoke to the tech, and he said he was putting freon into the unit and that should fix it. Unfortunately, the pipes were frozen over again by that night, at no point did anyone from our side or the realty company's side think that the unit was just being overworked. We have pictures of the frozen lines if they need be submitted.* They did not volunteer anything to help cool the house. We had to ask for a window unit, and they only brought out one that could cool a single bedroom.* We were not offered the full refund mentioned in this response. We did have some calls that were getting dropped, so we asked that our options be emailed to us so we had a common understanding, but they never sent us an email. Unfortunately, this ends up being our word against theirs since they would only communicate with us over the phone.* The reservationist only offered a single, smaller, and more inconvenient location. She did not give us options with other property companies, she just said that we could call other companies to see what they have (and mentioned TWO, not THREE companies).* We never posted complaints about [redacted] on social media. Sun Surf was blaming them for all of the issues with the unlocked door, so we contacted them through multiple channels asking them if that is the way they treat people. [redacted] acted promptly and professionally to us, and we have been advocates for them since this has happened.To clarify the call that took place later in the week, we were exasperated that they wouldn't get an air conditioner fixed and it took us calling a door manufacturer to get a lock placed on a door of a house we don't even own. [redacted] asked us what it would take to make us feel better. When we said it would take a deep discount, her response was "I thought this was about money". Even with that statement, we were never offered any discount or compensation.The owner of the company was on vacation that week. It took many tries to get his name or contact information. We actually had to find his name by using the Revdex.com site. We tried to reach him the week after our vacation and he never returned our message.This has been an unfortunate experience. We are extremely disappointed in the services we received for the money we paid, the way we were treated when we asked for help, and how the realty company portrayed these events. We would never use this company again. We even question returning to Emerald Isle, despite it being the only beach our children have ever known. Hopefully, others will read the accounts of this week and conclude they should not use Sun Surf Realty either.Final Business Response Sun-Surf Realty stands by our previous response to the Revdex.com in regard to the events as they occurred. Earlier in the week, Mrs. [redacted] was offered a full refund if she would like to check out of the property. She was offered the opportunity to move to another property as well, both of which were declined. At the conclusion of her vacation, she requested an 80% refund. In light of the fact that both offers were declined and she continued her vacation in the property for the duration of the week, a refund was not justified.

They rented us a property that was condemned during our stay, did not provide a comparable replacement, and did not give any form of a refund.My family and I reserved a 5-bedroom, 3-bath, private beach-access rental property ('[redacted]') from Sun-Surf Realty for the week of Sunday, August 9 - Sunday, August 16th, 2015 (reservation ID #[redacted]). We paid the total price ($2141.51) in full (in the form of two personal checks) prior to our arrival. On the Monday of our stay, the family in the other side of the rental property reported a loose board on the deck to Sun-Surf. On the Wednesday of our stay, a structural engineer came to check out the porch/deck area and deemed it to be "unsafe" and "condemned" the house. We were told that Wednesday afternoon (4:30 pm) that we had to be all packed up and out of the house by that evening. The replacement home was not comparable to the one we had rented - it was further down the block (away from other relatives we were vacationing with), only had 4-bedrooms, and had no beach access. A member of our party had to find another place to stay due to the decrease in number of bedrooms. We were treated disrespectfully on by [redacted] of Sun-Surf Realty as if we were inconveniencing her, and we were told that she did not have the authority to issue any refund because she was not the owner of Sun-Surf. We tried repeatedly during the remainder of our stay to speak with the owner (Mr. [redacted]), who we were told was on vacation. He did not return any of our calls until August 25th at which point he intransigently stated that he would not be administering any form of a refund because "we chose to apply our "refund" to the replacement rental house" (which we were not informed of at the time). At no point did the owner apologize for the inconvenience that our family experienced on our vacation due to a mistake on their part. The property should not have been rented out to the public in the first pace if it was that unsafe. We would like at least a pro-rated refund for the dates we were not able to use the property we had signed an agreement to lease. Desired SettlementA pro-rated refund ($1223.72) for the dates we were not able to use the property we had signed an agreement to lease. Business Response Contact Name and Title: [redacted]Contact Phone: [redacted]Contact Email:[redacted]The guest checked into the property located at [redacted] on Sunday 8/9. On Wednesday August 12 a maintenance request was called in from the guest staying on the West side of the same property. There was a deck board that had a hole in it. As we do with all deck repairs, we sent a contractor over and it was determined that the deck was in need of additional work. At this time the guests on both sides were informed of the possibility that they may need to be relocated to another property because the repair of the deck may not be completed during their stay. The renter asked if they could stay regardless of the deck repairs. In order to keep the guest happy and honor their request to remain in the property, Sun-Surf hired a structural engineer to determine if temporary repairs could be done. At that time it was determined that there was rot behind the flashing and the deck would need to be replaced and not repaired, thus being deemed unsafe. The guest from both sides insisted on staying at the property regardless of the report that was given to us by the engineer.A team of Sun-Surf employees exhausted every effort to find the guest a property that would make them happy and that would accommodate their entire family. As you can understand this was a very busy week on Emerald Isle and very few houses were available. There were no houses available with 5 bedrooms that was within the price paid for the current rental. Sun-Surf called every company on Emerald Isle and we found no oceanfront properties that were large enough. On multiple occasions we offered to give them a full refund including the days they had that stayed at the property prior to discovering the deck issue. They insisted that we either let them stay in the house they rented or move them and also give them a full refund. Our staff found them a second row single family home with Emerald Isle Realty. Both properties advertised sleeping 10 which is the same number of people that the current property accommodated. The property was an upgrade in comparison to what they originally had rented. Because the properties were more expensive and an upgrade we transferred all the money paid including the days that they had already stayed in the Sun-Surf property. Sun-Surf also paid to have a crew move them from one house to another. Both families made several threats including calling the press, the Revdex.com and multiple websites. At no time did we allow these threats to stop us from helping them to continue with their family vacation.The following items in their complaints are false1. They stated that I was disrespectable to them. At no time did I ever raise my voice, talk down to them or show any signs of frustration. I told them that I was going to treat them like they were my family and based on the Engineer's report, I would not let my family stay and so I could not and would not let them stay. During all of our conversations I had a member of the Emerald Isle Fire Department with me. Because of the way they were speaking to me and other members of our staff, he made the decision to remain in our office until they were settled in their new vacation home. 2. I made several offers to give them a full refund including the days prior to the deck complaint. However if they wanted to move into the property with Emerald Isle Realty, I would have to transfer the money to pay for it.3. We moved them from one house that slept 10 to another house that slept 10. Their complaint was that they had 12 people staying at [redacted]. The last part of their complaint said that the owner should not have rented the house because it was unsafe from the beginning, however they made if very clear that they had no intention of leaving the property and so the town of Emerald Isle was called out and the house was condemned4. Sun-Surf Realty was helpful, respectful and extremely patient with [redacted] and her family 5. There is a request for a refund of $1223.72 for the dates they were unable to stay in the Sun-Surf property. There choices were made very clear: they could end their stay and receive a full refund including the days that they enjoyed their vacation in the Sun-Surf rental or they could accept the property with Emerald Isle Realty and all monies would be transferred to cover the more expensive rental. They accepted the new property and continued with their vacation.6. In closing, they indicated that no apology was offered. I apologized continuously as it is not our intention nor does it benefit us to disrupt their vacation. Safety is our first priority.