Dispute Resolution and Non-Disparaging Agreement

STOP BAD INTERNET REVIEWS FOREVER with this Dispute Resolution and Non-Disparaging Agreement.

Tenants stayed in our homes for years and became our friends UNTIL THEY MOVED OUT AND WERE CHARGED FOR DAMAGES. Then they turned to their keyboard and smashed us on Google, Yelp, the BBB and every other complaint-friendly site that gave them a voice and BASHING THEIR MANAGER became their passion. Twice we were invited by the BBB to withdraw our membership because they were going to terminate our BBB certification due to bad reviews.

After several years of this we got fed up and our attorney Monica Gilroy helped us craft a Non-Disparaging Agreement for tenants to sign before move in. (We tried embedding language in the lease but it didn’t work.) Tenants fussed at the notion that we were taking away their right to smear us if they felt we deserved it and half of them refused to sign it. We were moving in 50+ tenants in a month and were constantly fighting with tenants about signing this document. We went back to the drawing board and recreated it into a more friendly agreement defining how we would both respond if/when a dispute arose. It worked like magic. Every tenant signed it without reservation. A year later we had a B+ with the BBB and a four-star Google rating. A year after that we had an A+ with the BBB and a 4.7 with Google. So, STOP BAD REVIEWS FOREVER with this (non-state specific) ONE-DOCUMENT-FIXES-ALL strategy.