Warning: Mynd Property Management - Fraudulent Billing, Asset Neglect

Mayank Shah · 2026-09-04T08:10:16-07:00

Fellow investors, if you are using Mynd Management, please audit your Cash GL Detail ledgers immediately. Mynd Management is not just grossly incompetent; their accounting system actively misallocates funds, and they fraudulently bill owners to cover up their own property neglect. Here is exactly how they mismanaged my Riverview, FL property: 1. Shielding Tenants at the Owner's Expense Following a mid-July move-out, Mynd’s own inspection report explicitly documented over $2,500 in capital landscaping damage, including ruined sod and a dead mature tree. Instead of deducting these severe damages from the tenant's $2,195 security deposit, Mynd completely ignored the dead lawn, exhausted the deposit on minor interior touch-ups, and gave the tenant a free pass. When questioned, local management falsely claimed in writing that a "drought" killed the landscaping so the tenant couldn't be held liable. 2. Fraudulent Vendor Billing Despite officially blaming a "drought," Mynd secretly authorized a vendor (Apex Key) to bill my owner turnover ledger $115.00 for "Tree Removal" and $349.03 for comprehensive "Weed Removal and Shrub Trimming" in early August. They literally billed my personal funds to remove the exact tree they claimed was a weather casualty. 3. Asset Abandonment & HOA Violations Despite charging my account for this "weed removal," Mynd completely abandoned the vacant property. By September 3rd, the HOA issued three severe, formal Notices of Violation for massively overgrown grass and driveway weeds. This proved that either Mynd disbursed my funds to a vendor who never actually performed the work, or they completely failed to maintain the asset during the vacancy window, putting me at risk of $100/day fines. When confronted with their own contradictory invoices and the HOA notices, local management deflected, refused to address the billing discrepancies, and shamelessly tried to upsell me on a $50 bi-weekly lawn service. I have escalated this matter to the Better Business Bureau and filed a formal regulatory complaint against their corporate broker license with the Florida Real Estate Commission (DBPR). Avoid this company at all costs, and check your own turnover invoices very closely.

Drew SygitBusiness Member

Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes

3w

Hmmm, you have two separate issues.

1) Tenant Damages: not sure what Florida law states about tenant liability for lawn upkeep. Doubt Mynd lease covers it deep enough to hold tenants accountable.
How well did you review their lease when you hired them?

2) Landscaping Work: How did you expect them to bill for removal of the dead tree and landscaping given they didn't hold tenant accountable?

Why would they maintain the lawn for free?

Appears they didn't meet your expectations, but that doesn't mean they are incompetent or fraudulent.

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Mayank Shah
OP
Member since 2025 · 7 posts · 2 votes
3w
Quote from @Drew Sygit:

Hmmm, you have two separate issues.
1) Tenant Damages: not sure what Florida law states about tenant liability for lawn upkeep. Doubt Mynd lease covers it deep enough to hold tenants accountable.
How well did you review their lease when you hired them?
2) Landscaping Work: How did you expect them to bill for removal of the dead tree and landscaping given they didn't hold tenant accountable?
Why would they maintain the lawn for free?
Appears they didn't meet your expectations, but that doesn't mean they are incompetent or fraudulent.

Hi Drew, thanks for the perspective, but you missed the core facts of the post.

1) Tenant Liability: The lease explicitly requires the tenant to maintain the landscaping to HOA standards. Allowing a mature tree and a lawn to die from deliberate neglect is property damage, not 'wear and tear.' Also provided full lawn re sod in june 2025 at my expense. A property manager’s fiduciary duty is to deduct those damages from the $2,195 deposit they held, not drain it on minor paint touch-ups.

2) The Billing Fraud: I never asked Mynd to maintain the lawn for 'free.' The issue is that they billed my account $349 for comprehensive 'weed removal,' yet the property was simultaneously cited by the HOA for severe, overgrown weeds. Billing an owner for vendor work that is either phantom or so incompetent it triggers an HOA violation is a breach of trust.

This isn't about 'unmet expectations.' It is about a corporate manager misallocating a security deposit, ghost-billing an owner, and abandoning an asset to HOA fines. Florida regulators take that very seriously, which is why the DBPR is involved.
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Drew SygitBusiness Member
Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
3w
1) Again, what do the laws in Florida allow?
This would be a tough court case to win in Michigan.
2) What proof did you receive that the work was completed - pics? Videos?
How do you explain that if they did the work in early August, by September 2 it would have needed to be addressed again?
Not trying to defend them specifically, and don't like how they appear to have brushed you off.
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Mayank Shah
OP
Member since 2025 · 7 posts · 2 votes
3w
Quote from @Drew Sygit:

1) Again, what do the laws in Florida allow?
This would be a tough court case to win in Michigan.
2) What proof did you receive that the work was completed - pics? Videos?
How do you explain that if they did the work in early August, by September 2 it would have needed to be addressed again?
Not trying to defend them specifically, and don't like how they appear to have brushed you off.
Hi Drew, to close this out for the benefit of other investors reading this thread:
1. The Law: Under Florida Statute § 83.51, landscaping responsibilities for single-family homes are dictated entirely by the written lease. The Mynd lease explicitly holds the tenant responsible for lawn care and HOA compliance. When a tenant signs a contract to maintain a brand-new lawn and instead lets it die, they are 100% liable for the damages in Florida. Projecting out-of-state laws onto local properties is exactly how corporate PMs mismanage assets in the first place.
2. The Fraud: You asked how I explain an August weed-removal being cited by the HOA in early September. I don’t explain it—that is the exact reason I filed the state complaint for fraudulent billing. You just made my entire point for me. It is a property manager's fiduciary duty to verify vendor work with photos before draining an owner’s ledger. They provided none.
3. The Industry Reflex: When an investor provides a detailed warning backed by dates, inspection reports, and HOA citations proving a corporate PM ignored $2,500 in dead landscaping to spend a deposit on minor paint touch-ups, the default reflex of other PMs shouldn't be to jump in, blame the owner, and invent excuses for the corporation. That dismissive, blame-the-landlord attitude is exactly why real estate investors are losing trust in the property management industry.
The facts and ledgers are now with state regulators. Best of luck with your Michigan properties.
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Drew SygitBusiness Member
Property Manager · Royal Oak, MI · Member since 2012 · 12k+ posts · 9k+ votes
3w
After reading your responses to others here, getting some clarity on your situation.
It appears you are stating the tree was never cut down or any landscaping work done.
The tree would be obvious and you state you have recent pics showing it's still there.
What is confusing though, is your statement, "They literally billed my personal funds to remove the exact tree they claimed was a weather casualty."
- If they used up the tenant's security deposit on other things (as you state) then who are they supposed to bill to remove the dead tree?
The other confusing issue is you state, "Following a mid-July move-out".
If they did the landscaping at the end of July or early August, why would you expect the grass NOT to grow and need consistent, further attention to avoid HOA tickets?
Why wouldn't they try, "to upsell me on a $50 bi-weekly lawn service"?
How else is consistent lawn service going to get done?
Anyways, if they billed you for work that was not done, you have a case.
Otherwise, something else seems to be amiss with your side of the story, but please fill in the information gaps, so we can better understand!
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Mayank Shah
OP
Member since 2025 · 7 posts · 2 votes
1w
Drew, the confusion here stems from applying standard property management logic to a situation that involves documented fiduciary concealment. Let me fill in those information gaps with the exact timeline that the State of Florida is currently investigating.
1. The Security Deposit & The "Weather" Cover-Up You asked who they should bill if the deposit was used up. The issue isn't that the deposit was exhausted; the issue is that Mynd missed the strict 30-day statutory window (Fla. Stat. § 83.49) to place a claim on the deposit for severe landscaping destruction caused by the tenant (which was explicitly a tenant responsibility under Section 12 of their lease). To cover up their administrative failure, Mynd retroactively classified the dead landscaping as a "weather casualty" (drought) so they could legally bill my owner ledger instead of admitting they blew the deadline to charge the tenant. I know this because Mynd accidentally sent me their internal ticketing notes explicitly confessing to this exact cover-up strategy.
2. The $349 Phantom Clean-up & HOA Violations You asked why I wouldn't expect grass to grow and why they wouldn't try to upsell a bi-weekly service. Here is the timeline: On August 5th, Mynd billed me $349 specifically for a massive "weed removal" to bring the vacant property into HOA compliance. Less than 30 days later, on September 3rd, the property was hit with three separate HOA weed violations. If a vendor actually performed $349 worth of weed removal on August 5th, you don't receive three severe overgrowth violations 28 days later. The "upsell" for a $50 bi-weekly service was their attempt to profit off their own failure to verify the initial $349 vendor work was actually completed.
There is nothing "amiss" with my side of the story. In fact, the documentary evidence of this timeline—including Mynd’s internal written confession—is so watertight that the Florida DBPR just cleared legal sufficiency and officially opened a regulatory investigation against Mynd’s Broker of Record for culpable negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
When a PM makes a mistake, they should own it. When they falsify property conditions to illegally shift the cost of their administrative failures onto the property owner, it stops being a landscaping issue and becomes a licensing issue.
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Jim Johnson

Real Estate Agent · Memphis · Member since 2026 · 558 posts · 326 votes

3w

This is a good reminder to actually review the detail behind the owner statement, not just the final number. If I’m being charged for landscaping, repairs, or turnover work, I want the invoice, work order, and property condition to all line up. When those pieces start contradicting each other, that’s when I’d start digging into every charge.

1 Reply

Eduardo Cavasotti

Investor · Charleston, SC · Member since 2018 · 198 posts · 84 votes

3w

This is exactly why I stopped trusting turnover invoices at face value on my out of state properties. I request the actual vendor invoice for every line over a small threshold and check the charge date against my own before and after record before I approve anything from a deposit or my ledger. A PM's story about who did what to your property only holds up if you have a paper trail of your own that does not depend on them telling the truth.

1 Reply

A Khan

Member since 2019 · 9 posts · 3 votes

3w

How do you maintain a mature tree ? Don’t they survive in forests by themselves.

1 Reply

Mayank Shah
OP
Member since 2025 · 7 posts · 2 votes
3w
Quote from @A Khan:
How do you maintain a mature tree ? Don’t they survive in forests by themselves.
Hi A Khan, a suburban Florida HOA lot is not a forest ecosystem. Residential landscaping relies on active irrigation (sprinkler) systems to survive dry seasons; when a tenant turns the water off for months, the yard and the trees die from deliberate neglect. But more importantly, you missed the core issue of the post: regardless of how the tree died, Mynd officially claimed the tenant wasn't liable because of a 'drought,' but then secretly billed my personal ledger $115 to cut it down anyway. That is accounting fraud.
1 Reply

Josh C.Pro Member

Property Manager · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes

3w

I’m not in Florida so I guess I don’t know. But it seems insane to expect a tenant to maintain a mature tree. The fact you called it mature means it can live on its own right? You need realistic expectations in the rental game and asking a tenant to treat your property like his own is not realistic. I wish tenants did, but they just don’t care like you would. Also, unless your leases states something about ensuring the sprinklers are working that seems like it wouldn’t hold up in court. Same answer with the grass. Finally $115 to cut down a tree is a heck of a great deal. I couldn’t get the HVAC guy to change a furnace filter for that. If the tree is dead don’t you want it cut down? $115 is a crack head price if he didn’t back his pos pickup into your house you got a deal of a lifetime and should be happy. I’m sure you hate this response, but it’s an honest opinion from an unbiased person.

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Mayank Shah
OP
Member since 2025 · 7 posts · 2 votes
3w
Quote from @Josh C.:
I’m not in Florida so I guess I don’t know. But it seems insane to expect a tenant to maintain a mature tree. The fact you called it mature means it can live on its own right? You need realistic expectations in the rental game and asking a tenant to treat your property like his own is not realistic. I wish tenants did, but they just don’t care like you would. Also, unless your leases states something about ensuring the sprinklers are working that seems like it wouldn’t hold up in court. Same answer with the grass. Finally $115 to cut down a tree is a heck of a great deal. I couldn’t get the HVAC guy to change a furnace filter for that. If the tree is dead don’t you want it cut down? $115 is a crack head price if he didn’t back his pos pickup into your house you got a deal of a lifetime and should be happy. I’m sure you hate this response, but it’s an honest opinion from an unbiased person.
Hi Josh, you mentioned you aren't in Florida and don't know how it works down here. That is clear, but what you actually missed is the definition of fraud.
1. The 'Deal of a Lifetime': You said I should be happy I got a dead tree cut down for $115. The tree is still standing in my front yard. Mynd authorized a vendor to bill my personal ledger $115 for 'tree removal,' deducted the money, and never actually removed the tree. I have time-stamped photos from this week proving it is still there. That isn't a 'crack head price'—that is phantom billing and corporate theft.
2. The Lease: Yes, standard single-family leases in Florida HOA communities explicitly require the tenant to run the irrigation system and maintain the landscaping to HOA standards. The tenant signed a legally binding contract to do exactly that, and the PM failed to enforce it.
It is genuinely concerning that the immediate reflex of out-of-state Property Managers on this thread is to jump in, blame the owner, and justify a PM's invoices—without even reading the post closely enough to realize the vendor never actually did the work they billed for.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the hard evidence and ledgers are already with state regulators. Best of luck in Indianapolis.
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Josh C.Pro Member
Property Manager · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2010 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
3w
@Mayank Shah seems like a lot of work for a tenant so they probably won't do it as you have an example. I'll give you another. HVAC maintenance can save tons of money in the long term. So we mail the tenants new furnace filter every 3 months. At least half the time they are piled up by the furnace. We tell the tenants during lease signing (and they have to initial saying they read it) that changing the furnace filter is required and it will save them $20 a month on their bill as the system runs more efficiently. They still don't do task that takes 30 seconds and saves them $240 a year. Knowing this leads me to believe you'll find few people who aren't retired that are going to water your mature trees regardless of what the lease states.
If you did get billed for tree removal and they did nothing that's unfortunate. But in the back of my mind I'm still thinking they could trimmed it and that would be more in line with $115 cost.
good luck down there.
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Mayank Shah
OP
Member since 2025 · 7 posts · 2 votes
3w
Quote from @Josh C.:

@Mayank Shah seems like a lot of work for a tenant so they probably won't do it as you have an example. I'll give you another. HVAC maintenance can save tons of money in the long term. So we mail the tenants new furnace filter every 3 months. At least half the time they are piled up by the furnace. We tell the tenants during lease signing (and they have to initial saying they read it) that changing the furnace filter is required and it will save them $20 a month on their bill as the system runs more efficiently. They still don't do task that takes 30 seconds and saves them $240 a year. Knowing this leads me to believe you'll find few people who aren't retired that are going to water your mature trees regardless of what the lease states.
If you did get billed for tree removal and they did nothing that's unfortunate. But in the back of my mind I'm still thinking they could trimmed it and that would be more in line with $115 cost.
good luck down there.
Josh, your entire argument has devolved into comparing a tenant changing a furnace filter in Indianapolis to a property manager fraudulently billing an owner in Florida for a tree removal that never happened.
You admitted yourself: you don't operate in Florida, you don't know the laws, and you're just guessing that a bill for 'tree removal' might actually mean 'trimming' because you can't fathom holding a management company accountable. That right there is the exact systemic problem in this industry. When PMs excuse ghost-billing as 'unfortunate' and shrug off corporate theft, they become part of the problem.
The ledgers are with state regulators and the facts are documented. Have a great day in Indiana
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Ashish AcharyaBusiness Member

CPA, CFP®, PFS · FL · Member since 2017 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes

3w

Mayank, the biggest thing I’d do in a situation like this is separate the operational dispute from the accounting evidence.

If you believe vendor charges were improper or funds were misallocated, I'd pull the full owner ledger, invoices, work orders, tenant deposit records, bank activity, HOA notices, inspection reports, and every written communication tied to those charges. Then reconcile what was actually billed, what work was actually performed, and which property or tenant each charge was supposed to relate to.

From the tax side, that matters because bad property-management accounting can create more than just an operational headache. If expenses are misclassified, duplicated, allocated to the wrong property, or supported by weak documentation, your year-end books and deductions can become unreliable too.

I’d also be very careful about posting or relying on broad conclusions like “fraud” until the documentation has been reviewed by an attorney or regulator. The facts you described are serious, but preserving clean records and letting the evidence drive the claim is usually the strongest position.

For any landlord using third-party management, I’d recommend a regular owner-side audit of the general ledger, vendor invoices, security deposits, repairs, and property-level cash activity instead of assuming the monthly statement is enough.

Feel free to DM me, I’d be happy to send over a few resources that might help with property-level recordkeeping and audit-proof documentation.

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Fendy Tropnas

Member since 2026 · 3 posts · 1 vote

1w

Mayank, this is exactly why transparency between a property manager and an owner is so important. An owner should be able to see what work was authorized, what was completed, what was charged, and have documentation to support it. Vacant properties also still need active oversight, especially when HOA violations and fines are a possibility.

I own F&F Property Management LLC, and situations like this are a reminder of how important communication, documentation, inspections, and vendor accountability are in property management.

I hope you’re able to get the accounting reconciled and the situation resolved. If you end up looking for a different management company in Florida, I’d be happy to connect and see if we can help.

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Igor Ganapolsky

Coral Springs, FL · Member since 2018 · 468 posts · 103 votes

1w

the part that stands out to me is the gap between what got billed and what actually happened on the property. whether its florida or anywhere else, if youre paying a vendor invoice and the property looks worse not better afterward, thats the red flag. ive seen this with tax deed properties specifically because youre starting from a position where you dont have the prior owner or tenant history. you hire a pm thinking theyre your eyes on the ground, but if theyre not sending you photos of completed work or at least matching the invoice dates against actual property condition, youre just trusting their word. the hoa violations on top of a paid weed removal charge is the kind of thing that should never happen if someone is actually checking. empty lots in florida grow back fast in summer so even if the work was done in early august, 30 days of florida rain and heat with nobody monitoring means it could look like a jungle again by september. but thats exactly why you need someone watching. paying for the service and not verifying the result is basically donating money.

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Warning: Mynd Property Management - Fraudulent Billing, Asset Neglect

Warning: Mynd Property Management - Fraudulent Billing, Asset Neglect

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