The Koto Group

"If I could give negative stars I would. We lived in the koto groups Paso apartment, it was a nice apartment. However we had packages stolen, maintenance requests were declined. Was told sorry that’s not our issue call a non emergency number when something happened at the complex. There is not one person from koto group on site. A neighbor lit a car on fire and cops came by everyone’s apartment looking for them the “landlords”responded to anything. Someone’s apartment caught on fire. There are units that sell and do drugs out of them. And homeless people living on the complex. The police didn’t do anything. The sewer backed up and poop was everywhere and we had to send multiple requests to get it taken care of. We moved out and we cleaned the apartment and didn’t get a full return back because of labor and professional cleaning. They always have an excuse and they never seem to care about the tenets. Live there if you don’t really care about the place you live. The company doesn’t care."

"Never told us about any vendors doing work on site, lost a lot of sleep with our new born. They also threatened to tow our car off site? while we are still paying rent and within our lease? Trust them as far as you can throw them, they're robotic."

"They wouldn't show a property until I filled out an application, which requested contact info for my work manager. It's not appropriate for a property manager to contact senior executives at a tenant's company. Do what everyone else does and contact HR to confirm employment. As a former landlord I can just imagine Koto owner clients wondering why their properties sit vacant so long, not realizing that they just bounce well qualified tenants. Update: I've had seven viewings over the past two days. Two were shown by owners. Three were shown by good managers. Two were shown by poor managers. Zero asked me to apply prior to the viewing. The best was Jovien Joy at Sierra."

"Hey, yeah I did have issues with them. They took a lot of money away. I had professional cleaners go through the house and they still charged 500+ for cleaning expenses. The one thing that was broken in the house they didn't charge for, so I'm not sure how they calculated over 2500 of charges. I hope it works well for you, I would just be prepared for them to be greedy."

"My UCSB daughter and her 4 friends wanted to rent an apartment from the Koto group for their junior year. The Koto group charges a non refundable $25 application fee. The girls each filled out 2 applications, one for each available apartment. They didn’t know that one application was all they needed. So the Koto group automatically charges your card for each application even if they don’t look at it or open the application. So that was $250. A lot for each girl to lose when in college and not working. The girls also wanted a parent to co-sign. They felt that it would help them by turning in their apps with the co-signer attached and it needed to be done real time for both apartments. As a parent I filled out the applications as a co-signer as soon as my daughter asked. This is all online and automatically charges your card without opening the apps. They charged me 2 $25 fees and the other 4 girls parents too. Another $250 charged for not even looking at the application. So that equals $500. The listings closed and no one was contacted because they received too many applications. At $25 a piece plus a co-signer, how many $50 fees did the Koto group collect in those 2 listings? Our group was $500 and many others applied. As soon as you you hit send you’re charged. As I brought this to their attention they said no refunds, it’s an application fee. Fee for what? They didn’t do anything, it wasn’t a credit check, they told me, it was an application fee. For what? No one has responded to my email pleading our case. I’m letting everyone know what poor business acumen the Koto group has. Making money from college students by collecting huge amounts of application fees knowing that they won’t get to most of the applications that get sent in. Its hard to get an apartment by UCSB, there aren’t enough to go around. When one pops up, the kids get in the app fast. This is quite the money making scheme. I asked for half the money to be returned in good faith, no one is answering my requests. So far 2 emails and a text to an employee, all ignored by the Koto group. I want all of Goleta and Santa Barbara to know what thieves the Koto group are. They run a money making operation on the hopes that these college kids will apply to one or more of their properties. Don’t give them your credit card number. Beware of these wolves. I’ll follow up if they ever return my emails. There’s also no phone number to the office, there’s a message that says they only communicate via email. So there’s no access to them, you’re at their mercy."