Lyndsey Gibson has long enjoyed taking family vacations at Ocean Isle in North Carolina. The hotspot has been a favorite of her husband’s family for more than 50 years.
So when Gibson, a resident of Durham, North Carolina, and her husband had the opportunity to purchase their own property in Ocean Isle, they jumped at the chance — with plans to use it as both a family vacation spot and an income property they could rent out.
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For the last three years, whenever they wanted to rent it out, they used Stellar Beach Realty and Rentals, a property management company that assisted with bookings and gathering deposits. The company is owned by John Kozak.
But everything changed in September, when Gibson realized that Stellar never paid them for any of their August bookings.
She claims the company owes them more than $23,000 for that month. As of October, she still hadn’t been paid for August and is now also owed another $5,000 for September rentals.
“This year is going to be tough,” Gibson told ABC 7. “I don’t know how we’re going to get through the winter months when we don’t have bookings.”
Gibson and her husband aren’t the only ones left reeling — other Ocean Isle property owners have come forward claiming Stellar owes them thousands of dollars in rental payments.
The North Carolina Attorney General’s office confirmed to ABC 7 that their office has received at least 20 complaints from affected homeowners and stated in a letter to Steller customers that the situation “appears to be a criminal matter.”
Danielle Boukedes, another Ocean Isle homeowner, claims she’s owed more than $31,000 for renters who stayed at her property in August and September. Like Gibson, she says she trusted Kozak to handle bookings and payments.
“We’re upset, you know. Everyone trusted him and trusted our money was safe, and at the end of the day it wasn’t,” Boukedes told reporters, adding that Stellar also collected deposits for future rentals, some as high as $9,000.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Stellar’s owner, homeowners say they’ve yet to receive concrete answers. According to Boukedes, Kozak told her, “I don’t have the money,” and could not explain why the funds were not safeguarded in an escrow account.