A Chicago-area landlord is suing her property manager, claiming he billed her for thousands of dollars in maintenance and repairs that were never done, according to the lawsuit.
Galina Peeva Nedialkova is the owner of at least 14 residential properties, mainly on the West Side. In 2015, she hired Stefan Dimitrov to act as property manager for the buildings and agreed to pay him 10 percent of the rent payments collected from her properties, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County court.
Nedialkova realized, however, that Dimitrov was not performing his duties as expected, and that a number of the buildings he oversaw fell into “disrepair,” the lawsuit claims. Dimitrov’s failure to maintain the buildings resulted in a number of city code, housing and ordinance violations, according to the suit.
The failure to properly keep up the buildings caused the city of Chicago to sue Nedialkova’s company. According to the lawsuit, the city sued her three times for buildings in disrepair and is seeking a total judgement of $75,000.
Even while the buildings fell into disrepair, Dimitrov billed Nedialkova for work he said he performed but never did, according to the suit. He also failed to market available units in the properties and failed to collect rent, the suit alleges.
These actions caused Nedialkova’s company to spend $782,000 on repairs that didn’t happen or on repairs that took place but did not meet code and needed to be redone, the suit alleges. That figure does not seem to include the $56,500 Dimitrov collected in salary, according to the suit.
Dimitrov is also accused of misleading Nediakova’s company on at least two property deals that he then pursued for himself.
In one of those cases, Dimitrov was acting as a real estate agent for Nediakova’s company, which was looking at an opportunity to buy three adjacent properties in the 1500 block of South Komensky Avenue, according to the suit.
The company placed the highest lump-sum bid for the three properties and moved to close on the deal. But in December 2017, Dimitrov told the company that only two properties were included in the sale.
The company went through with the sale, but Dimitrov “usurped” the funds that were to be used to buy 1508 South Komensky and then bought it for himself, according to the lawsuit.
Nediakova and her company are seeking more than $1 million in damages. Nediakova’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Dimitrov could not be reached for comment.