Jacob Lei Property Management LLC - Knoxville, Tennessee

Damion D.

These good reviews has to be paid. Please DO NOT rent from Jacob Lei. They do no maintenance, they will charge a cleaning fee but do not clean pre your move in!! They will not be easily contacted nor do they response to service requests. They are also scammers who will create false move out reports just to pocket money!! I had my apartment in clean conditions(see photos) and they claimed is was damed and charged me ~$500 to "repaint" walls. DO NOT RENT!! I know finding rentals is challenging but DO NOT RENT FROM JACOB LEI! They also have fake contracts from repair company that provides high and false repair estimates to pocket your money. See my unit photos and compare their report for YOURSELF!! The google accounts you see on here with "good" reviews, only ever review Jacob Lei. Can you believe that?!

Breanna T.

RETURNING SINCE I CANT POST A SECOND REVIEW. 11/26- We completed our lease (that was not signed with Jacob Lei to begin with) paid for a move out clean, & just received a bill for $1000. When we moved in we did not have fresh paint on the walls and it was not cleaned. We lived there for 2 years and they are charging us a full repaint and an additional move out clean! I stand by my initial review, SAVE YOUR TIME & MONEY! I posted pictures of what our move out looked like!

I am not sure how they have 4.5 stars. They bought out our lease and then requested to charge 3.5% for a debit card payment FOR US TO PAY OUR RENT. (Like rent isn’t already expensive) the lady in the office is rude, they like to come in and “inspect” monthly, but don’t stick to the agreed upon time then reschedule for a weekend with a 3 hour timeframe. Though they say you don’t have to be here, who wants random people in their home with their pets? We didn’t sign with them, but I would not recommend it!

Christina S.

Even though it makes me give a 1 star. I give this place no stars. I WOULD NOT recommend I currently live here have for a year and it’s been a constant fight with them to get them to do anything. First it took 2 months to get a stove while I was pregnant. Then it took 2 months to get a fridge after I called a lawyer. Now I currently have a 5 month old and I have maggots coming out from under my sink and they tell me they will just send me an eviction notice instead of fixing the issue. Mind you I just paid rent yesterday. Not to mention all the requests I’ve put in about cockroaches and huge spiders that com in my front door and my laundry room pipes.
GOOD THING I HAVE SCREENSHOTS OF EVERYTHING!
Edited: they claim that it only took two weeks to get appliances but good thing I’m not dumb and I have screenshots of everything and I contacted a lawyer as well for the fridge. 52 days is NOT two weeks. The roaches have ALWAYS been an issue. The maggots are an issue because they tore out the garbage disposal and did not properly cover them not from lifestyle. And I only “screamed” after you said there was not services coming and my own mother can attest to that and when they told me I need to “learn” my place and shut up.

They can say I have lies but I will upload more pics of said lies. Along with where I hung up on them and where they called me back. Thank you have a great day

Josephine H.

I will start by saying I had a well thought out review written that despite plainly stating facts, was too long for Google Reviews or Yelp. I am exhausted of this property management company and cannot express how ecstatic I am to be rid of them. I also cannot fathom how they have any good reviews based on not just our experience, but the experiences of our former neighbors as well. They let us live with disgusting mold in our apartment for over a year as I exhausted all options trying to get it taken care of and contacting them over and over and over. The water damage in the mold room ruined my brand new sheets on a bed that was on the floor due to not having a bed frame at the time. Several different neighbors knew about the mold situation because, as we were told by them, at least two former tenants moved out because of it. The foundation expert defined the moldy wall as “completely saturated” by water, and a maintenance man once found a live slug crawling out of the damaged floor. Once they finally did get rid of the mold and installed a sump pump, they let us live with a demolished room for the remaining 3 months and 3 weeks of our lease, AND lied about not being able to get in touch with an electrician to approve the electrical stuff before they could fix our room. He showed up unprompted and told us he just had to stop by and hope we were home so he could approve it, and that Jacob Lei would not answer or return his calls. He approved everything in about one minute, but like I said, they never repaired the demolished room anyway. Our kitchen sink broke— and I’m not embellishing here— FIVE times. (At least, it could have been more honestly I stopped counting after five). Soaked everything in the cabinet below and I had to replace it all. Every time I called (about anything) I was told “the maintenance men are busy.” Though I know that is also a lie because one time when a pipe leaked disgusting brown liquid into our ceiling, the only way it was resolved was because I got the personal phone number of the maintenance man, and he came out and fixed it immediately. One of the times our sink broke I called for 2+ months about it. Finally I told the manager she needed to have someone come fix it as soon as possible. The maintenance man came the next morning and I told him it had been broken for 2+ months, and I was just curious if he was ever told. He said no, the previous day was the first time he’d ever heard of it. It’s very obvious Jacob Lei is a company of cheap slumlords who don’t want to pay to have things fixed. Don’t bother calling if you have any issues. They will either be sweet and say they’ll get it taken care of soon (and won’t), or be blatantly rude. I once called about a major leak coming from our ceiling only to be cut off and told “yeah, it’s the rain.” I said ma’am we live on the bottom! (Also if it was because of rain I guess that meant it’s not important? I don’t know). It was a leak coming from our upstairs neighbor’s water heater. There are plenty more things I could go on about, for example having to pay a cleaning fee for the apartment to be dirty upon arrival… took multiple x sanitizing the floor for it to get clean…etc. But like I said, I am so exhausted of this company. I just wanted to share our horrid experience and warn anyone thinking of renting from Jacob Lei. We are not difficult people and simply wanted a LIVABLE apartment in exchange for our $1,025 a month. But no! I guess we got used to living the high life at our former apartment since they would actually fix major issues in a timely manner. Oh yeah, and to top it all off they didn’t give us our refund on time because they’re so “busy.” Hahaha that’s illegal not just an oopsie but whatever, we got it eventually. Giving 1 star feels wrongly much too high but unfortunately I’m not able to give less.

Shelly M.

Coming back to say… CHECK BBB REVIEWS!! This place is terrible! I only left 1 star because I had to. If I could give 0 I would…. Save your time, this rental company is a complete joke. Their properties are ran down, full of mold, and nothing is ever fixed timely or at all. It takes an act of congress for them to do anything and they will drag their feet on any assistance you need after you move in. If it doesn’t involve them getting their greed fix…. Good luck! The office staff are VERY unprofessional and embarrassment to the face of the company. They hate to hear it and take zero accountability. When moving in, the property will not be cleaned at all… maintenance has shown up under the influence of narcotics and slapped a layer of paint down to say they cleaned… actually had a bug painted onto the wall. Unless you want to go through the trouble of hiring a lawyer to take on your troubles with this company, don’t waste your time! A JOKE! The 5 star reviews are posted by people asked to do so in return for $$… coming from an ex office worker. Know who you rent from!!! And don’t be surprised when you are charged for normal wear and tear… which you can FIGHT btw! Don’t let them win!

Jared C.

This company is a sorry excuse for landlord. Definition of slum lord. They will your up your rent no reason other than they want your money. They will charge you a cleaning fee and your home won’t even be cleaned so I guess that’s another $250 someone gets to pocket because they don’t pay a cleaner. They are in no hurry to fix any maintenance issues and the ladies in the office have the worst attitudes. They are definitely not any help they just tell you to email someone and you may or may not get a response. Any time you call they seem like it’s the biggest deal. Sorry you have to actually do your job. All of the good reviews you see are paid for. DO NOT RENT FROM THEM. Let them drown in their own sorrow.

mckenzie W.

I absolutely do not recommend this place to anyone!
They do not care about anything but money!
it took them 6 months to get a new working fridge, stove, and microwave because none of them worked when we first moved in.
Not only that they won’t tell you anything that’s going on until other tenants complain and you hear and then finally see for yourself, there’s a serious mold issue and they have yet to solve it.
There’s drugs that go in and out of the Nevada apartments that they do not care about, i’ve seen several needles just laying on the ground and in and out traffic and people slumped over in the yard from being so high. They let the trash bin get so full that it can’t even get used. they failed to keep up with bug maintenance as well.
JUST DONT DO IT!! and save yourself from staying sick and save your money!!

Michelle ?. B.

My experience with this company has been stressful to say the least. I was on a 45 day notice to move because my landlord decided to sell his property. I explained all of this to Dee and she was confident Jacob Lei had something for us. For starters we looked at the first house, $1400 per month in East Knoxville. Makes no difference to us because we mind our business and stay to ourselves and I'm not afraid of my own people. The company wanted 2.5x the deposit. So $3500 plus first and last months rent. We applied and paid their application fee for the two of us. While viewing the home, Sherry the agent showing the home explained how they look at credit scores etc...i explained my credit score is probably less than 620 and she said they charge an extra deposit for that. So being in a crunch and not having time or room to be picky, I said OK. We'll try. I applied and had to call them to ask if they heard anything from the owners. Of course no one answered the phone, I had to leave a message. One of the many BTW, because they just don't answer the phone. When I called the second time and left a message with a bit more urgency in my voice and Dee finally returned the call and said the owner decided to go with another tenant. Ok, fine moving along. We decided to stick with them since we paid an application fee and looked at another house. Now with a third person and more income but no, they again denied us blaming it on the owner saying they declined to rent. The unprofessionalism of Dee is disturbing especially in a time when private landlords are nearly non existent and these property managers want to gate keep. I had to leave voicemails multiple times to just get a call back let alone a call back to inform me of any application I put in. I feel like they lied saying credit score can be worked with when in truth they wouldn't work with me. Later I come to find out my credit score was 642. Stay away from this company unless you ask lots of questions! Ask the questions before spending money on an application fee. If Sherry had told me 640 or 620 credit score was not good enough I would have NOT applied, especially thinking my credit score was closer to 590 than 600. Their fee is also only good for 30 days. Check your own credit score, know what you're working with and do not rely on these opportunists to tell the truth. They certainly put the tenants in they want in. And just to say if I had a 650 credit score I would be buying not renting.
FYI... Google For rent by owner when trying to find a private landlord. They are still out there they are just drowned out by all the realty agents playing property manager