Veranda La Jolla, San Diego CA

I would never write 1-star reviews unless things are definitely going wrong. Please bring back la scala or replace someone else in charge. Build an online portal for payments and repairing requests. Respond to resident's requests in one-year-lease renewal. Fix the public facilaties.
It is clear that most people living here are unsatisfied. So, as a kindly reminder, there is need to take action.

When the complex was La Scala, management was 1000 times better. Our lease ended on the 31st of August, and we still have not received any word about a new lease we have to sign, despite telling the office multiple times that we will be renewing our lease before the last day to do so. As of right now, we are on a month-to-month lease with nothing signed or promised to us, so they could very much increase rent if they wanted to. We got charged with a $100 late fee on the 4th of the month despite the old contract saying we can pay up to the 5th day. Turns out, that grace period has changed, but of course we didn't know that because there's no new lease for us. None of us have access to the online portal which is where we normally pay rent and file maintenance requests. They are constantly saying that it's because of "IT issues" ever since July. There is very poor communication between not only the management and the tenants but the people in management themselves as well. One person is telling us one thing, and another person is telling us the opposite.who do we even trust? There are no longer emails to us about any updates or changes, we have to go into the office and learn about anything new by ourselves. At this point, it feels like they just want our money and will charge us for things we can't control. This is so unacceptable from management. Do better.

Since FPI Management took over Veranda La Jolla and put Chad Hartoin as Community Director, it is impossible to get any help from Chad, who by the way is not a Licensed Property Manager
and who according to his Linkedin is already “managing” more than 500 units for Avenue 5 Residential, a different Management Company from FPI. Maybe that explains why he never replies to emails or phone calls and why when you see him in the leasing office he is very rude to tenants and doesn’t help you at all. We have contacted FPI Management many times informing them we need a Property Manager to take care of things such as lease renewals, on time processing of checks for rent so we don’t get charged $100 late fee when we had paid on time, fixing dryers, and all the responsibilities a Property Manager has.
Please be advised our non-existent (unlicensed) Property Manager Chad Hartoin is the only person who can renew your lease. As of today, one- year leases are not being renewed, they are left to expire and automatically convert to month-to-month with all the disadvantages this brings to us residents who need the stability a one-year lease brings such as locking the price, cheaper rent and roommates that commit to pay rent for 1 year. Please contact Pacific Urban Investors who are the owners of Veranda La Jolla, to let them know FPI Management knows their Community Director Chad Hartoin is not doing his job and they don’t care about it or about the residents of Veranda La Jolla. You can read FPI Management Yelp Reviews to check this is how they operate with all the properties they manage. They simply don’t care about the well-being of their residents. They cash the checks for rent without mentioning who cashed it. When you move out they claim they cannot find your rent payment and will charge you again.
Contact Pacific Urban Investors to let them know FPI Management doesn't have their best interest in mind.
1. We need a Property Manager that communicates with residents 30 days before the lease expires to let them know if the lease can be renewed for another year. Currently many neighbors have their leases expired for months and their lease is now month-to- month which doesn’t bring stability to anyone and allows for a more expensive rent and periodical raises.
2. We need the 5 dryers and 2 washers that have been out of order for the last 2 months to be repaired ASAP. Multiple work orders have been placed. Most apartments have 4 people living in them. That is a lot of people to do laundry and we cannot have 5 dryers out of order for months!
3. We need the computers in the resident lounge to be repaired. For the last 2 months none of them work except for one.
4. We need the Online Resident Portal to be activated so we can pay rent. We need the correct address of each apartment listed in the Online Resident Portal. All apartments in the Online Resident Portal have the default address of Veranda La Jolla. That can be a problem to prove you paid rent for your apartment.
5. We need our rent checks to be processed on time when we pay on time so they don’t keep adding $100 late fee to the apartment in the Online Resident Portal every 4 th of the month.
6. We need to be able to communicate with the Community Director if we decide to move out. According to Yelp Reviews of FPI, previous tenants of FPI Management Properties had to get a Tenant/Landlord Attorney when they moved out because their
move out notice was never acknowledged by the Community Director. On paper it was the tenant’s fault for late payment of rent when they had actually said they were moving out.
7. We need Chad Hartoin to reply to emails and relink apartments to the Butterfly app to open doors. Since FPI took over the Butterfly app has stopped working for most.
8. We need to bring back security patrol in the nights for safety and noise complaints. Pacific Urban Investors needs to know they hire the worst Management Company because FPI and the unlicensed PM they chose to represent them: Chad Hartoin, don't care about the property and the residents.

This place is a scam. They are extremely good at applying their bait and switch scheme to the young and honest UCSD students. They promised $2000 concession money when they tried to convince my son and his friend to apply for 2b2b apartment. Then when we saw the first lease, $2000 became $1000. And they also made a stupid mistake on the lease by adding a parent as a resident. After we asked a fixed version, you know what, they simply removed the $1000 concession, saying you will have to wait until the end of the lease to see if they can give us the $1000.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame one me. We decide to withdraw. Great job for losing a high quality tenant, cheers!

My nephew and I recently moved into a one bedroom apartment at Veranda La Jolla. We love the apartment which overlooks a beautiful courtyard and can't wait to use the amenities such as the pool and spa. The rental staff helped us understand all of the paperwork and were very helpful.

I recently helped a refuge family apply for and obtaine a lease on an apartment at Veranda La Jolla. The staff (Chad, Andy, Andrew and Cabriel) in the rental office went to great lengths to ensure that our application was processed as fast as possible. The complex is clean, safe and well run. The pool and spa area is stupendous. The location is close to shopping, the trolley and many other amenities.

Since we have the new management of Chad Hartoin nothing works or gets resolved in Veranda La Jolla. Washers and dryers are out of order? Nobody replies to email, phone calls or fixes them. Your apartment has a water leak? No way to get an anwers from the leasing office. Community Director Chad Hartoin didn't set up the Online Resident Portal as promised by September 1st and everyone who paid by check got a $100 late fee added to their apartment on September 4th which was the Sunday before Labor Day. When you email them to remove the late fee as you left a check with them before September 4th, there is no answer. When you call them they don't pick up the phone. If Anthony picks up the phone he will say yes to you to everything and later do nothing about it. We went to the leasing office in person. Chad Hartoin was talking very rudely to a poor UCSD student who wanted to know if his application had been approved. Chad kept saying, "I will email you" but we all knew it is not going to happen and the student looked pretty desperate. After the student left, instead of helping us, he turned around and went to his office and sat down. We went after him to tell him we needed his help and he looked at us with a lot of rage, very upset and offended that we dared to need help from him and to talk to him. Well, he was the only one at the office that day and he IS the Community Director. He not only mumbles his words as if he never got and education at College, he was super rude and kept texting and ignoring u as we told him what we needed help with. Without looking at us he said he would email us. I asked him if he had gotten our rent payment and he said he hadn't check. Well, it is the 7th of the month.you are the only one at the office. You are the Community Director, you have your residents in front of you asking you if you have gotten their check for rent, it is 2 pm (the office opens at 9 am) and all you can mumble is: I haven't checked if you have paid rent, I will email you? What was FPI Management thinking when they decided it was a good idea to put such a rude, antisocial, incompetent lazy young guy as a Community Director? He DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! HE DOESN'T WORK FOR A MINUTE! IN PERSON HE RUNS AWAY FROM RESIDENTS AND HE NEVER ANSWERS AN EMAIL OR THE PHONE! We actually don't have a manager to take care of things. They don't even process rent payments. I wonder if Pacific Urban Investors, the owners of Veranda La Jolla, have any idea of how badly their property is being taken care of by FPI Management and the absent Manager Chad Hartoin. Also Chad was very agitated and nervous when while he was talking to the UCSD student in front of us and when he was talking to us which made him bumble his words even worse and be even more rude. It goes beyond us how such an incompetent, rude person can be the Director. By the way, he is already the Property Manager of 550 Units for Avenue 5th Residential so maybe that explains why he is not doing his job at Veranda La Jolla. We will inform Pacific Urban Investors and BBB.

La Scala was better. The new website for Veranda is confusing, it's convulted and difficult to navigate the different apartments. There's 2 different bedroom types, now there isn't any differentiation between the two.

Building 1, half the dryers in the laundry room in building one is out of service and some unevenly dries the clothes. I don't understand how that's considered luxury.

Composting is supposed to be taken out twice weekly or at least weekly. It was weeks before it was disposed off and you couldn't walk near there without going through a swarm of flies.

La Scala used to communicate with us through email or paper letters taped to the door/elevator very promptly. Now, it's been 2 weeks and they haven't communicated about a new resident portal to pay rent and request maintenance after calling and stating there would be one.

Beautiful apartment and kind management!
Chad was super helpful when I came for a tour. He patently answered all my questions and gave me a full tour of all the facilities here.
Thanks Chad!

Veranda is an amazing place to call home! I absolutely love the amenities in unit and in the complex in general. When I have an issue the staff is always very helpful and respectful. Chad, the property manager, has been a great help in any issues I have run into.

Very friendly office and nice community! Cabby and Chad were very nice and answered all questions quickly. Great location next to UTC mall. The pool feels like a resort!

The complex is very dirty. No one cleans the premises near the apartments and parking. The manager is completely incompetent and rude. The city's sanitation station must be informed of violations at that location.

I lived in La Scala or as it’s called now “Veranda” on two separate occasions. It’s the same building, as they haven’t done a complete overhaul of the building the issues will remain the same as my experience.

The first time I had a one bedroom corner unit on the second floor. The ventilation was okay in the unit but I always had my windows and both balcony doors open.

The second time I lived here was a different story. This time I had a first floor two bedroom, two bathroom unit. Initially it didn’t seem so bad, I was busy, not home a lot, and it was before Covid. During Covid it changed. In the span of just two months my unit had three major water leaks. The first leak I noticed and reported when I noticed wet carpet in the hallway outside my apartment. I reported the issue early on a Saturday and no one came to identify or attempt to fix the leak until Monday. It took over a week for the repairs to be completed and during this time there were extremely large dehumidifiers placed in my unit in the peak of summer, making the unit unbearably hot. And these dehumidifiers drove up my power bill and rendered my kitchen unusable.

The second leak was actually an additional repair to this initial leak as they apparently repaired it incorrectly the first time. In the course of this repair they punched a wall through the kitchen into my second bathroom and lit a towel on fire… maintenance didn’t notice but I noticed a burning smell in my apartment and went to investigate. This took another week to resolve and the wall was never properly patched. During this time my second bathroom was also unusable.

About a month later I noticed water collecting in my first bathroom and they discovered yet another leak. Cue another weeklong repair.

At one point my main bedroom closet’s main bar collapsed and punched a hole in the wall. Maintenance repaired the bar but despite my call, they never repaired the hole.

Ventilation in this unit was terrible. I ended up having to buy multiple dehumidifiers and somehow there was still mold in the closets and in the bathrooms. In addition as many other reviews have mentioned, noise was terrible. I called multiple noise complaints on my upstairs neighbors as they would throw parties until 3AM with people screaming “SHOTS” sporadically throughout the evening. Also someone above me had a dog that they would trap on the balcony and it would cry for HOURS on end. I mentioned this to management but they never did anything about it. They claimed no one above me had a dog in their unit but somehow dog toys would fall onto my balcony.

Also, in 2018, my apartment was robbed by a former maintenance worker. He had copied a master key and was able to enter my locked apartment and tried to enter multiple times while I was home claiming a “work order”. I never placed a work order. I left later that day and when I came home over $5000 of jewelry and designer goods was stolen. I called the police and have a police report and reported the issue to management. They just cited a rash of recent thefts in the building, changed my lock to one not accessible by a master key, but didn’t compensate me at all despite me stating that the former employee had a key and entered my apartment TWICE while I was home.

Honestly, if you have the option, don’t live here. The mold issue alone is a huge problem not to mention the fact that the trash chute is frequently clogged and somehow fruit flies always get into your apartment even when you don’t have fruit and infest because of the dampness.

The water pipes are old, so the water smells, you can hear everything next door, utilities are expensive, and the worst of them are the people who work in the leasing office.
I submitted the paperwork, but I lost it and ran away, and the processing was terribly late.
I got out right away, but it's the worst. Don't go.

The parking was always a HUGE issue. There was zero control on students who didn't even live there taking up spaces from the residents while they hop on the buses for school, not to mention the damages our cars. My bumper was smashed in and I went to reported to the office, I was told there are no cameras in the parking garage. The apartment itself was nice, but that was a horrible experience unable to park in your own apartment complex. Hope that has changed over the years.

The absolute worst building I’ve ever lived in. Management wants to charge you for everything, including automatic cleaning fees during move out and I was never able to have peace and quiet due to the noisy neighbors. Not soundproof at all & no matter how many times you complain, nothing changes.also, there is always sketchy people hanging around (breaking into cars in garage) and I ran into a couple actually roaming the hallways through out my few years of living here. Definitely don’t recommend moving in. On a positive note some of the staff were helpful like the maintenance team & Sapphrina as well.