We won’t lock you into staying because our goal is to make sure you want to stay

It is common practice among management companies to operate like a subscription service that you can’t cancel. Your management contract shouldn’t be harder to cancel than a gym membership.

With no notice you can immediately enter into a contract with a management company, at Wozig we can even onboard you within two weeks. Can you end your contract with your management company without prior notice? Yes, but will it cost you penalties and arbitrary fees? Not at Wozig, cancel anytime without further obligation. You may not have looked at your management contract, it could even be a decade old. In our years practicing law we have reviewed over a one hundred management contracts and we found a common thread: long notice periods, termination fees, and fees to transition to a new company.

Management companies charge you a fee to setup your community with them, so why do they charge you a fee when you try to leave? They already covered the costs to acquire your business and service your community. These fees are for the sole purpose of keeping your business. At Wozig our service and your satisfaction keep your business, we never charge any fees if you want to leave. We believe the contract should focus on what we can do for you and not on what we won’t let you do.

If you are a director you should try the following: don’t ask to terminate your contract with your current management company, but ask them to modify the contract and remove the notice and termination fees. If they refuse, or fail to act quickly to make these changes, then you should consider telling them in writing you don’t want to renew. No community should settle for a management company that doesn’t want to compete for your business, and instead relies on a salesperson to get you to sign a contract that locks you in and makes it hard to leave. We understand at the beginning of a service relationship nobody is focusing on the break-up, actually that isn’t true: the management company is already planning for your desire to leave after they break the promises made in the sales pitch.

This practice preys on the inexperience or lack of attention to detail of the board of directors. Other management companies focus on slick sales, fancy websites, ‘technology,’ and the contract, while the directors are focused on serving their community. It is normal to feel frustrated when a management company doesn’t understand your bylaws or covenants, and yet can immediately recall the anti-competitive no termination clauses of your contract.

They don’t care if you stay, they made it so you can’t leave.