Yvaine opened the folder and pulled out a lease from a property Rhett’s company had managed for nearly ten years. “You remember this tenant?” she asked. Rhett glanced at it and said he probably did. Yvaine turned to the settlement page and pointed to the signature. The tenant had won back almost eight thousand dollars after Rhett’s company had withheld fees that weren’t permitted under the lease. Then she pulled out six more files. Same company. Same complaints. Same outcome. Every case had been handled using documentation Yvaine had gathered herself.
Rhett’s partner picked up the next file and asked why none of those disputes were in the company’s leadership reports. Rhett said they were minor tenant complaints and that his staff handled hundreds of them. Yvaine smiled and said, “That’s exactly what you called my work.” Then she showed them emails from employees at Rhett’s company asking her for copies of leases, statutes, and correspondence because they couldn’t find the information themselves. One email had been sent from Rhett’s own assistant three months earlier. She had forwarded it to him at the time, but he’d never responded.
The table went silent. Rhett finally admitted that his company had used some of her research, but insisted that didn’t make her a property manager. Yvaine closed the folder and said she never claimed it did. “I only wanted you to stop pretending that the work was worthless because I didn’t have your title.” Rhett’s partner then asked whether she had records of every case she’d handled for the family. Yvaine picked up her folder, stood, and said, “I brought fifteen years of them. If you’d like, we can start with the ones your company told everyone had never happened.”
