Complaint Review: Michael Twentyfive - Rochester New York

 I won't get deeply into this other than to say Michael Twentyfive NEVER, EVER OFFERED TO RESOLVE THIS!!! He sent one email saying he was speaking with his accountant and would get me my money. Then, shortly after, he claimed I was threatening his life which gave him the excuse not to respond.

He claims law enforcement told him not to respond. Show me the report. I'm sorry. If someone threatens my life or the life of anyone I care about, I'm going to call the police and file a report. Michael Twentyfive has been lying from day 1 and posts by others show he hasn't changed.

How many others has he stolen from but don't know about this site? If you're reading this, please share the site with others. They need to know.

 Michael Twentyfive, I do not remember trying to hire a hitman. Do you fancy yourself as one? LMAO!!! I do remember that you have not returned a single dollar that you stole from me. I remember you claiming I called and threatened you and/or your family. I remember you telling me you would pay me.

Those are in emails I still possess. Oh, I may have told you about my brother wishing I was dead or that his now ex-girlfriend said something like that; the one who is now married to a multimillionaire. As I mentioned in my first ripoff report, you talk a good talk and promise the world to others while picking their pockets.

I am happy to be out of real estate in Rochester. My brother still has 4 or 5 slum properties. Maybe you two could join forces in a future scam. I'm happy knowing that my report has been seen by many others and, seeing you post a crazy response, shows it must be having an effect... And, it will remain up as long as you owe me money.

Good response Francis, I seem to remember you sitting in my office, ranting about your brother Carl Welte, and "jokingly" asking me if I'd murder him for you, but if I refused you'd "hope he just drowned on his recent scuba diving trip"... That's your brother? Correct?

And you ranted about murdering him,... Your brother,... Think I forgot about that? You wanted me to murder your brother, "jokingly".. But hoped he died... You're credible, shall I continue?

 Frank, do you remember trying to pay me, and "convince me" to kill your brother Carl, in a "scuba diving accident".. And hoping your brother Carl Welte dies? Remember, 311 Alexander st.?

Since you're so detailed oriented, rambling on about murdering your own brother for 20 mins? Figuring out how to kill him and laughing about it. Should I start getting into that ? A man laughing, and plotting to kill his own brother, you're credible.

MMT Property Management, owned by Michael Twentyfive, took over management of five properties I own in Rochester NY on October 15th 2018. Since that time he has always deposited less to my account than he had collected in rent.  At this point, due to a shortage in deposits, he has collected $10,000 more than he has sent me.

For example he would collect $5,000 in rent, charge $500 in maintenance, and send me a $2,000 deposit which is short by $2,500. This has compounded over several months. In addition, he has failed to collect (or report the collection of) more than $20,000 in rent.  I am suspicious that he is collecting more rent than he is reporting and ma in the process of building a paper trail that documents what he has reported as collected against what tenants, DSS, and RHA are reporting to have sent him.

If you add that up I am short by more than $30,000. Every time I reach out (He only communicate through email) he would tell me he talked to the tenant that day, or DSS was late but it was coming, or he would send a deposit in two days (and weeks would go by.  Sometimes he sends deposits but they are always well below what is owed to me.

Yes, you took some time to formulate a response. I filed this report 3 years ago. You took 3 years to respond! I’m guessing you waited until more people filed reports and it actually started to hurt your business! I would go through your rebuttal line by line but the lies you profess are a joke. I was a drunken maniac? It never happened. The tenants called and complained about me to you? Try the other way around. I had the wrong insurance? I had over $2 million dollars in commercial property insurance. I hired thugs to threaten your family? Please show me the police report(s)! You say you called the police. I would, definitely, file a report if my life were threatened. Hmmm...your comment title says you contacted law enforcement in 2014 regarding these threats. I didn't start these demands until 2015 (after I fired you). Maybe you are thinking of someone else you screwed over? You paid out security deposits? To whom? I had to pay them out when you refused to. Evictions? I paid the attorney and, if needed, marshal directly! Repairs? That wasn’t your job. It was Ernie’s and he did it well. The lies go on and on. You were hired to rent apartments, collect rents/security deposits and to forward any repair requests by tenants for repairs to Ernie. If the job was small, he did it. If it was large, he called me for approval/funds.

As I said in my first report, you did well for over a year; that is, until you started to short the deposits and failed to return security deposits. You collected almost $20,000 per month in rents. Several tenants called to tell me they went to your office multiple times during business hours (your listed business hours) to find your doors locked. I received calls from tenants saying they didn’t get their security deposits back when they moved out. You stopped making deposits and refused to respond to my calls, texts and e-mails. Calls to your brother fell on deaf ears. He always said it was your company and he only worked for you. When I told you that I contacted my attorney, you made promise after promise after promise to make deposits; not a single one of them kept. Here is what you owe; 571 University Ave; $5,265 in security deposits 579 University Ave; $8,300 in security deposits 90 Park Ave; $3,225 in security deposits 141 Park Ave; $2,900 in security deposits Rents collected; $8,463 Total owed by you; $28,153 This number has not changed since I sent it to you in January 2015.

I never threatened you or your family. I made an online request to friends and acquaintances to contact you in an effort to collect this debt. When you complained to me because your phone wouldn't stop ringing and said you would make good, I apologized and asked that all calls be stopped. As soon as the calls stopped, so did any offer of payment by you. Death threats? Really?!? You promised multiple times to pay me what you owed; you told me your accountant was working on it; you told me your attorney was working on it; you told me that you would be making deposits. Over the last 3 years, I have not seen a single cent from you. Now, people are seeing your true colors and you want to make a deal? I’ll make a deal with you. Keep your word. Pay me what you owe. Hell! Make me an offer that is not laughable and I may accept! But, calling me a liar, lying about the circumstances of my properties, my actions and expecting me to roll over for an offer that is less than half of what you owe will get you nothing. This Ripoff report is here for a reason.

When I posted it 3 years ago, you received a copy of it. I entered your e-mail and you had the opportunity to respond way back then. You had all of 2015, all of 2016 and all of 2017 to respond. Why is it that you waited over 3 years to respond? I’m guessing it’s because word of your shady business practices is spreading. People are stepping up, speaking out and staying away…and it’s affecting your business and your reputation. You claim that this report is hurting your business. How do you think the theft of $28,153 affected my business? I'll tell you; It nearly crippled me! Did I get an apology from you? Did you make an effort to pay me back? As I wrote above, all I got were empty promises and, then, no response at all!

I will make you a deal; pay me the money you owe and I’ll take down this report. If you had paid me the money you stole 3 years ago, this report would not even exist. You, also, claim that you are getting slandered all over the internet. I only put up this one report. I am not responsible for any other posts. I’m guessing people are doing their due-diligence and research before doing business with you. This reply is being posted less than a week after your rebuttal (3/8/2018). If you want to settle this matter, I do not expect to wait another 3 years. I await your answer.

Here is my response to previous clients wild accusations of security deposit theft, this is something I had to take sometime to formulate a response to because of the nature of the compliant. I was also advised by law enforcement to block this person, which I will get into.I spoke with previous tenants of the properties and former employees of the company.  This will be long winded but I want to make sure all facts are out there because this is outrageously inaccurate and I want to address it properly and in detail.   

Here is the OBJECTIVE version of the events that took place. I would like to start this off by saying I would have no issue coming to a resolution on this matter, which in fact, we were doing with this client via email, as he confirmed in his complaint before he had got completely psychotic , mentally unstable and hired thugs to threaten my family and I and I had to contact law enforcement.     To start he is correct, we did a very good job and we are "good talkers" because we know how to effectively own and manage apartment buildings, coordinate with the City of Rochester and deal with tenants as compared to the properties when they first came to us, they were in complete disarray and in violation of MULTIPLE dozens of city code violations and NYS Health violations. It is a huge red flag right away that they are either mis-managed or the owners do not know what they are doing, in this case it was both and I say that because I was warned not to take on these properties by city inspectors, attorneys and unpaid contractors. Hind-site is 20-20. We were also warned that they had been through multiple management companies before,  the owner Frank was extremely hard to deal with and the properties were very rundown. I would also very much take responsibility for the fact that at the time, I was a little younger and my company was growing very fast due to the fact that we had such a good reputation and such a good niche in the management business of taking over distressed properties and effectively turning them around and maximizing cash-flow and knowing what I know now I would have never taken on these properties or this landlord, but we did. We were a fast growing company and looking to expand. We rushed into this contract without ever doing proper due-diligence that I would certainly have done now, but we took it on and it was a mess from the beginning.   

To start we should have set up a reserve budget for the property after doing a thorough assessment to make sure it even complied to basic occupancy standards set forth by the city of Rochester and also NYS, which it did not. If this owner wants to talk about legalities the amount of laws broken in regards to Fair Housing Laws, Zoning regulations, NYS warranty of habitability, and NYS Multiple dwelling law violations it was astounding. We would take dozens and dozens of calls a week from tenants complaining.  From there we never setup an operating budget with the landlord, which we should have done given the history of the properties and condition, because we took on way too many expenses and liabilities that we never got reimbursed for because the owner was so obsessed with getting deposits right away rather than putting money into his distressed properties  allowing us to perform effectively as management, as all we were doing was putting out fires with tenants and raking up eviction and repair bills. Our fiduciary duties are towards to landlord aka. our client, but it is crucial to maintain good standing with tenants which we were unable to do so because of the landlord. We also could not effectively manage because the landlord would come to town, not tell us, and start raising hell with the tenants and they would call and complain to us that they thought the owner was a drunken maniac harassing people.   

Another red flag is the financial position of the owner, which come to find out, he owed huge tax bills and did not have the right types of insurance on the properties, therefore putting us at huge risk. In property management the manager is always the fall guy, we understand that in the business, the tenants are always looking to screw you anyway possible and the landlords use you as a scapegoat for any issues. It is a very thankless and "what have you done for me lately" type of job. So that being said we have had hundreds of clients and hundreds of tenants and never had any issues until these properties and owner completely took up all of our time and resources. We only lose clients 3 ways, they either sell, or we break ties, or they break ties. Typically it is the 1st, sometimes second rarely ever the 3rd. Well when we mutually agreed to step away from this property, it is accurate that we were going back and forth exchanging information about the property, because anytime a client leaves for any reason we try to give them as much information on the property that we have and that they request. Now keep in mind, no matter how detailed we kept our reports, the owner would have us spending HOURS AND HOURS every going over basic owner statements and expense reports, for some reason they just couldn't understand anything that we put in front of them, probably because the weren't used to seeing organizational finance statement on their properties and just "winging it" so to speak, before us.    So naturally at the end of this relationship, as expected they had huge discrepancies on everything we sent them. 

It was very frustrating dealing with someone so erratic, but we still spent huge amounts of time going through the information. It is at this time that we were having a civil email correspondence that I started receiving threats to my family as well as myself and employees saying we need to "pay up" some kind of ridiculous amount of money. Fortunately for me, the thugs he hired had left the landlords name and specific dollar amounts they were expecting with their threats. I alerted my lawyer as well as law enforcement and they advised me to cease communication immediately and alert my employees as well as family to report anything suspicious. It was at this time I emailed Frank to tell him that he had turned a simple business dispute into a criminal act, and that I didn't appreciate his giving my personal information out to street thugs. It is also at this time he admitted to doing it and that he would tell them to stop. At this time the investigator I was speaking to said please do not communicate further as to agitate the individual, send everything to your lawyer in case anything happens. 

Fast forward and now I am getting slandered all over the internet, and going against my lawyers and law enforcement's advice, I am going to respond because this is enough of this nonsense.    He thinks he is owed 25k in security deposits and rents, that is outrageous, we had thousands in outstanding repair bills, security deposit returns we had to pay, and also eviction fees that he never paid. I am willing to settle this matter civilly via email so there is a paper trail, and come to a resolution and pick up where we left off. I have no issue doing that if Mr Welte agrees to remove all the slanderous and defaming internet posts he has put up because quite frankly it has cost us a lot more in lost business and reputation then the 25k he is thinking he is owed. We have lost new business because of these wildly outrageous claims and its time the truth is out there. So in conclusion, like I said, I am willing to resolve this reasonably so both parties are happy but all these internet posts need to be removed before we resume the dialogue     I know this is a lot but it needs to be out there and I need to defend our actions and also the tenants that got screwed over. 

I work with MMT overseeing maintenance and repairs. I think you are referring to the Property at North St..? We found out the owner of the building was in foreclosure and that we were not allowed to be on the property. I was scheduled to do maintenance and repairs on that property and the bank kicked us out of the apartments while we were painting and doing repairs and showing some of the apartments. If you can email right away we will make sure you get your deposit back  from the owner. Please email and I will also figure this out for you, the landlord misled us on this property unfortunately. 

Mike Twentyfive's is still doing the same "work," but under a new name the company to watch out for is

MMT Property Group LLC same guy, same scam. This information is accurate to Monroe County Court records

2017.  Tenants are suing in smalls claims to get their security deposits back.