Hartis Properties Inc

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On the 9th of September, 2013, I contacted Ms. Deborah Hartis, owner and operator of Hartis Properties Inc. regarding a rental property. At that time, some information was given pertaining to the property such as first month's free rent and a 1 yr lease which was perfect for my family's needs. I contacted her the following day to set up a time to see the property at 1 p.m. Ms. Hartis arrived and proceeded to give me a tour of the property. As she was giving the tour she informed me of all the amenities the property had to offer. She also informed me about the move-in date of October 15, as this was the deadline to be able to take full advantage of the first month's free rent. I informed her that I was very interested in renting the property. She also appeared very excited to rent it to me. She cited that it had not been rented out for over a year and that other couples who were interested in the property previously, came very close to completing the process of signing a lease but would suddenly change their minds. She never stated a reason why this happened, but she was excited that I was going to follow through and I assured her that we would not do the same thing as her previous prospects. After submitting a 30-day notice to my landlord at my present address and passing all of the required credit checks for the property she set a date to fill out the application and quickly sign a lease as the 15th of October was quickly approaching. After filling out the application, the only thing left for me & my husband to do was sign. Since my husband was not present at the tour or any of our previous meetings she seemed particularly excited to meet him. When my husband walked in to her office, Ms. Hartis appeared to be surprised at my husband's size and that he was of African-American descent. On the 19th of September, 2013, my husband and I had a meeting with her. At the meeting, she proceeded to check my husband's credit score because she had previously checked mine and she wanted to make sure that his also met the standards. After seeing that his credit was clear except for two utility bills, from a property that was 4 years prior, she began to lecture us about the importance of taking care of previous utility bills such as these and inform us that the two utility bills could have played a very critical part in getting us approved. The entire exchange of that day threw me off because her attitude appeared to totally change once she met my husband. This was apparent at the time. After completing the exchange, she informed us that she would contact the owners of the home to make sure that it was okay to let us rent from them. This seemed odd but we decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. The following day, we were contacted by Ms. Hartis. Ms. Hartis proceeded to tell us that the one-year lease was no longer available due to our age and income. She said that another reason why was in fear that we would damage the property and would not be able to afford the monthly rent payments, which is ridiculous as we were currently paying $275 more than what she was offering and had been doing so for over a year. She then proceeded to inform us that the first month's and deposit are now required and the free first month's rent of the original arrangement had changed and would only be available for the last month of the lease which seemed very peculiar. Ms. Hartis then proceeded to jokingly ask "now don't go and report me on this or anything, the free month's rent is still available, it has only just been moved from the first month to the last month of the lease." After asking her why the 1 yr lease has suddenly become a 6 mo lease, she began to reiterate that being such a young family, the owners were in fear of damages to thei...