Briar Cove Apartments

I lived in this apartment building for approximately one year in 2015 and would not recommend this apartment complex to anybody. I found the leasing office and management to be incredibly unhelpful when I was trying to sublease my apartment. I won’t bore anyone here with the long story, but the short story is the process took from February when I notified them up until the last minute in June, and involved multiple emails, phone calls, and ultimately several personal visits to the office. I have lived in multiple apartments in multiple cities and have never had to deal with such an unprofessional and difficult management company. They are owned by the larger Beztek and care not at all about satisfaction of their renters.
As far as the property itself, the apartments are nice as advertised with newer appliances and maintenance responded to my requests quickly. However, the windows have zero insulation and my heating bills were much higher than any other buildings i have lived in. This also means sound insulation is horrible, and I could hear full conversations from outside in the parking lot and knew every detail about the breakup of the couple above me when it happened. The dryer in my apartment was also poor quality (had to cycle it for over 2 hours to dry clothes), and the hot tub on the property (not that public hot tubs are my jam, but they are for some), was broken for ⁸⁄₁₀ months I lived there with no explanation.
Basically for what it costs to live here you can get a much better apartment, more centrally located, and certainly with a more helpful management. It just isn’t worth it. I didn’t trust them at all, and feel like they are one of those“bigger management” rental places that don’t care at all about screwing their renters because there are always people to rent. Trust me, don’t move here.

I have only had a positive experience at Briar Cove Apartments. The application process was as expected. You can do it online or in person, must provide two paycheck stubs, and wait two days for a result. You are given 7 days to fill out an apartment evaluation form (if anything is broken or needs replacement, etc.) After 7 days I noticed a crack in a window… I thought I might be held liable although I didn’t recall breaking it. They said no big deal, they will replace it and added it to the original evaluation form so I don’t have to worry about.
The apartment itself feels more like a home than an apartment. This is probably because each apartment has its own private door, as opposed to a communal atrium so to speak where you open two doors to enter your apartment. The rooms are adequately sized and have adequate features — fireplace, washer and dryer, fully equipped kitchen, walkout or balcony depending on level.
Maintenance requests are handled within 24 hours unless something needs to be ordered. I have really been impressed with this. After moving in I thought the medicine cabinet in one of the bathrooms looked a little tired. No questions asked they replaced the entire unit.
I’m satisfied with Briar Cove Apartments.

This place is terrible. DO NOT LIVE HERE.
While my apartment was fairly clean and appeared newly renovated, the rent is extremely high and in the end not worth it.
Also, I had an issue with my toilet running for 2 years. When I put a maintenance request in the first time, the guy said it was all fixed and yet the problem continued. After the toilet would not stop running, I put in another maintenance request. This time, the maintenance guys came into my apartment with their dirty, muddy shoes on and replaced a part in the toilet. The toilet still runs and after all that I was felt with a huge muddy mess in my bathroom. Why couldn’t they take their shoes off before entering my apartment.
Finally, the people who work at the office are pretty much incompetent. I’ve had them call me about not paying my rent only to find out that they had the check the whole time (luckily I had a receipt — important lesson people!)
There are a lot of similar apartment complexes in the area, and I would suggest living in one of those.

*Great work, guys. Thanks for the nice message. I’m glad you’re rectifying this clerical error two years after I’ve moved out.*
I lived here for a year, from July 2012 to July 2013. There are things I like a lot about the place. There are things that aren’t great, but I can deal with. Then, there are the unmitigated disasters, that have marred all of the other positive experiences I’ve had, that will prevent me from recommending this place to anyone at all.
*The good:
The quality of the apartment unit is quite decent. My apartment was remodeled right before I moved in, and even though some of the work was not the highest quality, it was nice to live in a modern-​feeling place. The grounds are also nicely manicured, and during the winter, they react pretty quickly to salt the sidewalks. The playground is clean, and things are generally kept pretty well. They are also pretty quick to respond to maintenance requests, which is more than you can say for most complexes.
*The meh:
The rent is high for what you get. On a per-​square-​foot basis, it’s not as expensive as Signature Club, but it’s more expensive than other places. I don’t appreciate the fact that they wouldn’t let you walk through the apartment before you committed to it (they only show off the model unit — and for whatever reason they keep the lights on there all the time), but I was in a rush and had to make a decision. I heard from other tenants that they reserved the right to increase the rent on you without giving you advance notice, so I’m glad I didn’t stick around.
I don’t like paying $ 20/​month for a covered parking space, but I’m not going to begrudge them that. I appreciated that I was able to park right outside of my unit.
The pool is, inexplicably, an H-​shape that prevents you from being able to do laps. But, it’s cleaned up in the spring as soon as it’s warm enough, and I took advantage of it.
The gym is really low quality. They need some free weights in there. Their excuse is they’re not allowed for liability reasons. Bull crap — every other apartment I visited has free weights. The running machines seem to be perpetually broken. There was zero attempt to fix this.
*The head splitting disasters:
The hiring policy seems to be to just get anyone with a pulse. The guy I worked with in 2012 was great, but he left about a month after I moved in. After that, it was a long string of just really horrible people. They’re never actually in the office when you need them to be, and they often get there late (I’ve waited up to 15 minutes after their stated opening time) and leave early (I’ve shown up half an hour before their closing time and found that they’ve already closed up).
There is absolutely zero accountability from the Beztak head office. None. Beztak is completely hands-​off when it comes to management, which basically gives the apartment manager carte blanche to not give a crap when something happens.
Their accounting system is bonkers. Here’s what happened: back in May, my roommate’s automatic payment check didn’t show up. We think it got lost in the mail, but they were super eager to penalize us. My roommate decides to write a check on the spot, then calls the bank to cancel it. Briar Cove cashes the new check, and the bank cancels the one in transit, but sometime in early July the check finally shows up. Although we had already paid up in June and July (and we were moving out in July anyway), whoever is in charge of these things didn’t bother to check and deposited the canceled check anyway. Except, that check has been canceled.
We move out in mid-​July, as scheduled. I go to my new place, my roommate goes to his, and I get my deposit back, as well as the excess rent my roommate and I paid (since we used auto-​pay, we actually paid the entire month of July). Plus, since they cashed the original canceled check, they send that amount back to me as well.
Then, they have a collection agency threaten me for unpaid rent, plus the non-​sufficient funds fee. This was a mistake that I didn’t make, but I was being penalized for it, and my credit is on the line. They didn’t bother to figure this out directly with me — they just went straight into collections.
I still question if the check was actually lost in the mail or not, or their front desk guy misplaced it, was afraid to tell anyone, and then tried to cash it later.
It took a full two months after I moved out, with arguing, pleading, cajoling, and finally threatening to call the Better Business Bureau before they decided to work with me and get the extra bill removed. Their office manager is unreachable if she decides she doesn’t want to be reached. The other people in the office are completely unhelpful and literally have no idea which direction is up.
*TL;DR:
I expected better. They are awful. I feel bad for people who continue to live there. Don’t live here when you can get better for cheaper in a nicer area that isn’t run by cretins and will actually get their stuff done.

Overall, my actual living experience at Briar Cove was fine. They do have a lot of spiders and beetles, but they do exterminate and at least I mostly found dead bugs rather than alive. My upstairs neighbor let out blood-​curdling screams on a daily basis over these bugs, but I digress.
My main issue began after I moved out. I paid the early lease termination fee of 2 months rent because I had to move out-​of-​state for my job. I was told I would receive my security deposit back within 30 days and I provided my forwarding address and also did a walk-​through with the site manager to make sure there were no damages.
After 30 days and no check, I ended up having to call and email Briar Cove and Beztak realty, only to receive the response from both saying «they were looking into it and hoped to have an answer for me soon.»
According to Michigan law, if the deposit is not returned within 45 days, the renter can sue for double the amount. I finally emailed Beztak Realty again after the 45 days had passed to point this out and got a response that the check had been issued and I should receive it in a few days; they claimed there was a «glitch» in their computer system. I did eventually receive the check over 7 weeks after I moved out and the invoice was coincidentally dated exactly 45 days after my move-​out and the check was dated 2 days after that.
While I do not blame the managers at Briar Cove because I assume this is out of their control, I think it’s a disservice to keep a security deposit until the last possible moment especially given my $ 2500 termination fee was cashed almost immediately and I followed every protocol to move out according to their terms.
So bottom line, expect bugs and don’t expect to get your $ 1000+ security deposit back for 2 months.

Reviewer Gerald P. has it all exactly right. I would add that Beztak/​Briar Cove also has no love for long-​term tenants (or their tenants period, long or short term). I have been here for several years now (don’t mistake my long tenancy for even remote satisfaction with my Briar Cove experience — I just haven’t been in the position to be able to make a much needed move) and during that time, my already too expensive (especially for what you get compared to other similar properties in the area) has increased over 148%. Management, when you can get in touch with them, simply does not appear to put residents first at all, which I find abhorrent. With the exception of one employee in the office (that was there for maybe a few months) and the maintenance guys, I have never dealt with a representative of Beztak/​Briar Cove that hasn’t acted utterly annoyed and completely disinterested in helping me. This applies even when I’m simply stopping by the office to pick up a package. Not cool. It doesn’t seem to register at all that while yes, it is a business, at the same time, what they’re managing are the homes of real people with real lives and real concerns. Do yourself a favor and go elsewhere.

I lived here for 6 months from Aug 2010-​January 2011 and had a fairly good experience. I loved that they gave my roommate and I an option of having a 6 month lease for a fair price (we both paid about 900 that included a set $ 36 water bill every month). They also have tennis court, a tiny gym, tiny spa, and a nice sized pool.
The apartment itself was pretty roomy and had lots of closet space which I really liked. Each bedroom had a walk in closet (the master bedroom was slightly bigger) and we had our own bathroom. Our kitchen was also pretty nice and welcoming, with a breakfast nook looking out towards the ‘backyard’ and a big walk-​in pantry for all your non-​perishable foods or any other kitchen gadgets.
The reason why I’m giving them three stars is because they have a huge problem with incest and SPIDERS! I have NEVER seen so many spiders in my life and still don’t know where they came from. I know, I know, spiders are smaller than me and most of them can’t harm me, but they are just annoying to kill and clean up. I used to be scared of the nasty little suckers and would most of the time, scream. But after living here, spiders are like fruit flies. So unnecessary and annoying. There were clear spiders (which were hard to see on the carpet) and a fairly sized brown spiders hiding in closets and walking all around the apartment. When we spoke to the office about the spider problem, they called the pest control to spray the outter and inner part of our apartment, but that didn’t solve the spider problem. I had friend who lived in the same apartment but a different complex from me, who had the same exact problem.
Another downside is parking. You have to pay (forgot the price… maybe an additional $ 15 or $ 25) for a carport that may not even be by your apartment and can only get one carport per apartment. Parking could be hard to find, depending on which complex you lived in.
I lived on the first floor and during the winter, it would get pretty chilly but they do have central air and heat. The walls of the apartment were pretty solid, so you didn’t hear the neighbors much but you could hear people walking above you.
The management was also really good about snow removal during the winter. I probably would move back here if it wasn’t for the price and abundant amount of spiders.