Hello everyone. This is another Morris Invest Case study. I'll start at the beginning and do my best to lay it all out. Please feel free to reply with any questions or comments. 

In early 2017 I discovered Morris Invest through a podcast. Not his originally, I am not sure whose. Then I started listening to his. I ended up making a phone appointment after researching for reviews and only seeing positive feedback. I had a talk with a gentleman whose name I cant remember. I was underwhelmed by this guys motivation. He was nice enough. Sent me a house or maybe two. He encouraged me to reach out to Lima Financial to discuss funding who, at the time, did say they were working with various MI clients. Regardless, we were nowhere ready to pull the trigger, I was trying to gather information more than anything. Fast forward to December and my mother decided to take a loan out on her house to remodel it and pull enough to buy a small rental. I looked into MI again still found nothing but positive feedback. BiggerPockets never came up in my searches, unfortunately. (I believe this to be an analytics fail as I found this community through word of mouth and one I checked out the website, then these posts about MI shot to the top of the search - just an interesting aside.) I scheduled another call and was hooked up with a guy named Glenn Radford. At this point, my mom had the cash so financing never came up. We pulled the trigger in Feb. and bought a house in IN. We were told that the rehab would take 4 to 8 weeks and then it would be rented out for $700. I was told that we would be given photos at the midway point of rehab and an eta on finishing the project so we could then hook up with the property manager to sign a contract and start the rental process. 

April rolls around and I haven't heard anything. April 4th I shoot off an email to Nicole, the operations manager, and Kate, the project manager. Nicole writes back on April 5th to say she has "spoken with boots on the ground" and though she was still waiting for an update on the rehab, she had "great news." The property had been purchased with a tenant! She goes on to explain how very lucky we are that we have a great tenant who is willing to stay while work is happening and has already agreed to pay market rate once the rehab is complete. Immediately -all the flags are raised. We purchased the property as empty. How could they not know it had tenants? And if they had tenants, where is my mom's money? Who is collecting that money and why had they not reached out to let us know? And who authorized the property management to negotiate rent on a house that is not under contract with them? 

I reached out to Pam at BlueSky who is the client liaison. She was super friendly and oh so helpful. I told her about the email from Nicole and that she had told me there is a renter. She confirmed that there was indeed a renter at $450. When I asked what rent had been negotiated for after the rehab she told me that that info was not in her notes and that she had to reach out to the leasing department but that she would get back to me. I asked if she had contact with the contractors since BS was managing the property and she said yes and that she would reach out to ask where they were in the rehab process. She also told me to fill out the contact and banking info so she can get the rent payments sent.  I went ahead and did so about a week or so later. 

I called her various times and she kept saying she was sorry but no one was getting back to her from either the leasing department nor the rehab team. Hmmm . . . So I sent the following email: 

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 6:50 PM, Kimberly Klaas <> wrote:

Hi Kate-

I am calling to ask for an update in the above mentioned property. I received an email 4/6 that said you would be reaching out to me the following week to update me on the construction and rent situation. I haven’t seen anything and decided to check back in. Can you please send us (myself and Norma who is cc’d here) information on the following:

1. How far along is construction and what is the estimated finish date.

2. How will rent be dealt with and when should we expect our first deposit since the house has been rented since February.

3. When should we expect the rent increase and to what amount.

I have been in contact with Pam who seems to be having trouble getting a call back on the construction and lease issues. I am hoping you have more information at this point since these questions were raised a little more than three weeks ago.

Cheers

Kim

After I received the following reply from MI: 

On May 4, 2018, at 9:14 AM, Kate F. wrote:

Hello Kim,

I have heard back from Blue Sky, they have a contractor assigned, but with it being occupied they have been unable to schedule a time to get inside. They need to work around the tenant's schedule.

Kate                         

In the meantime Pam sent a pdf of a year long lease for $450 signed March 3rd. Needless to say  - ALl teh flags went up. Nicole already told me she had been in contact with "boots on the ground" and the tenant was allowing them to work around them. How in the world could the property management not have any idea that work hadnt started when she told me that they were managing it?  Why would they sign a year long lease for a rate that was supossed to be very temporary, forget why they would sign that lease at all given they had no client as we had never signed papers. So many more questions and obviously I am getting the run around and something is wrong. Here was my reply:

Hi Kate-

Thank you for this update.

We have a number of unanswered questions/issues that need to be addressed immediately so I have CC’d the people that I know to be involved.

Tenants/Rent Increase/BlueSky

1. I received an email from you Nicole on April 5th saying that the unit was occupied (a surprise to us) and BlueSky had negotiated a new lease including an undisclosed agreed upon rent increase which would start after the remodel. On May 1st, Pam from BlueSky emailed me a copy of a one year lease signed in March for $450/mo., by Jami Barroso for Blue Sky and the tenant.Why would Blue Sky sign a one year lease if the intention is to raise the rent to market rate ($700 according to Morris Invest) after the rehab? Is there a signed lease, agreement or even an email between both parties that includes language about the apparent rent increase? How can I get clarification on this?

When we bought this house we were told it was empty. Why were we not notified about the tenants who lived there when we purchased the property? Additionally why were we not notified and asked about what we wanted to do before they negotiated the new lease? Who gave BlueSky the go ahead to negotiate that lease? I can tell you, we never gave them permission to negotiate on our behalf and had yet to sign a contract with BlueSky at the time of the supposed negotiation. You must understand my confusion and concern given that no-one can answer how much the post-remodel rent will be or when it the new rate will kick in.

3. When we realized that they had been collecting rent on our behalf unbeknownst to us we signed the BlueSky contract in hopes of getting paid in a timely manner. It took until May 2nd to get an answer on when we should expect moneys, and even then we were given a 6 day window and still no itemized invoice to inform us what we should expect. Under the circumstances, it is bad business to make us wait another month for this information.

4. Who is the best contact at BlueSky to get clarification on the future lease agreement? Pam, Becky, someone else?

Remodel

1. On April 5th Nicole emailed me “I was able to touch base with the boots on the ground on this property…”She also added,“So you will actually be able to collect rent during the rehab on the property. They are going to work around the tenant to complete this rehab so as not to loose a great tenant and still do the work.” All of this led me to believe that the remodel work had started and Morris Invest was in charge. Then on May 3rd at 3:50pm, you (Kate) wrote to me “I will reach out to the crew and check on the status of your property’s rehab. I do not work under BlueSky, so I don’t have access to rent and lease information.” That email further insulates that Morris Invest is in charge of the crew and rehab. Now you are telling me BlueSky is in charge of the rehab? Which is it? If it is BlueSky I need an explanation as to why. I also need a schedule with an estimated time of finishing.

Morris Invest

1. We purchased a remodeled house from Morris Invest. We were told Morris Invest has a team of contractors and would manage the remodel. No mention of BlueSky being involved in that arena. We should not be having to project manage this. (But so you know I have 20 years of experience as a project manager) You should be delivering the product you sold. We were told work on the property would start ASAP after closing. In the April 5th email Nicole also said we would be receiving emailed updates on the work including photos from you and Linzi. Until I started chasing this up, I never got any updates or explanations about the remodel. We’re roughly 3 months out from purchase and you're telling me that in all that time the contractors or project managers haven’t been able to schedule work? If I'm understanding that correctly, we have a serious problem. When will contractors start working on the unit? How long will it take? And also why did Nicole imply work had started when it hadn’t?

We purchased the house with an expectation of a certain return on investment within a certain time frame. At this point my 79 year old mother is not only losing cash she needs to live on, but is actually spending additional funds to cover the mortgage. This has gone from being an investment to being a liability and that is not acceptable.

I am confused why it took me having to chase down Morris Invest and BlueSky for weeks to get this most basic information.

My final ask to schedule a call with ALL the people in charge of each area to get clarity, answers, and a timeline to resolve this issue with in an optimal time frame. You must understand that I am losing confidence in Morris Invests’ ability to mange this project successful and to the terms promised.

If we don’t get answers and results in a timely manner, I will have my lawyer take over.

Kim

After I sent this I immediately call Pam at BlueSky. It took a few tries but she finally picked up. I asked some of these questions to her directly. SHe admitted it doesn't make sense that no one knew about the tenants, that a year lease was signed at the low rate (which after reading the other posts I believe is fake), and was silent when I asked who authorized them to sign a lease at all. She agreed that we should all have a conference call and agreed to make herself available. Kate from MI replied back that she would make herself available but Glenn, the MI sales guy, informed me he was far too busy and Nicole, the MI operations manager, has yet to reply at all. 

I am in contact with a property manager from these threads and am in hopes of getting some photos and confirmation about the tenants, if there is even a house, if it is worth pursuing, etc. At this point, my main goal is to get Clayton Morris to buy it back. I sent  FB message through his personal account Friday night. A bot replied so I have no idea if he has seen in. tomorrow I start posting on his pages and YouTube channels. Any other advice would be appreciated. Or if anyone had his direct email or number, even better. 

For those of you who have shared your own stories previously, I will be reaching out to you shortly. 

Thank you for your time - I hope this helps someone. I will keep updating as this progresses. 

Hi @Kimberly Klaas ,

Sorry to hear that you purchased from Morris Invest, the reviews on BP are pretty horrifying- the only positive reviews I've heard were from the paid shills on their podcasts, which I've listened to a few times for entertainment. 

The people who are most effective at getting their money back are usually the ones who take videos and post them on YouTube with "Morris Invest" in the headline. So I recommend going to your property and making sure that someone will be there to meet you to give you access(have a backup plan or two if they stand you up- knock to see if there's a tenant, and if it's obvious that there is no tenant, bring proof of ownership, call a locksmith, and get in there to take some video.)

If you decide to stick it out, I'd promptly fire Morris Invest and hire another manager. Plenty of managers pop up while looking through the other MI horror threads. 

I never buy with the in house property management company. It’s always best to go with another party Incase you need an objective opinion should you buy front the same provider.

@Kimberly Klaas sorry to hear your issues. My first thought and concern would be to make sure your mom doesn’t lose her house. That would be very bad.

Have you connected with a lawyer who’s handling one of these Morris cases? At this point it may be best to do that as I think it’s u likely Morris buys it back. The cards are starting to fall on what is essentially a Ponzi scheme.

@Kimberly Klaas If you do searching on google there are ways you can manipulate the algorithm to place your website at the top of the search when people use certain keywords. The algorithm frequently changes so you have to keep up with it. They were very good in doing this. I did MI search in late 2017 with same results so yours wasn't surprising since there was not nearly as many BP threads.

I don't know if buy back is still an option. If it is then Clayton should make an announcement. If he wants to do right by those who trusted him he should say it, instead of his usual deflection. I know a lot of people that would be interested.

you should talk  with 

@Colin Zhu

these stories get more bizarre as the lid is blown off of this company and the ability they had to manipulate SEO and u tube etc.  most likely it will take a collected effort to get satisfaction.