By Anne Higuera
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Dozens of landlords are telling the same story: They’ve been ghosted and unpaid by West Seattle-based property management company Dwellings Seattle, Inc. in recent months, struggling with the ensuing legal and financial mess, while most live out of state or even out of the country. They have banded together online, filing complaints that are spurring investigations by Seattle Police and other agencies into the principals of the firm that owners say has withheld more than $1 million from them.
By nearly all accounts, Dwellings Seattle Real Estate & Property Management had a stellar reputation for much of the last 10 years, with 5-star reviews and referrals from top real estate agents and word-of-mouth. Looking at online reviews, tenants didn’t always have nice things to say, but complaints from property owners didn’t snowball until 2026. Now the firm’s state real estate license is canceled, its designated broker has left, the balance of its client trust account is unknown, and the company has gone dark. A steady stream of tips from readers alerted WSB to the unfolding situation in recent weeks, some in an effort to recover their own money and others to inform remaining Dwellings tenants and owners, as well as the larger community.
From an office at 3806 California Ave. SW and a website (now essentially nonfunctioning, except for the “pay rent” icon) clients say, Dwellings’ owner and CEO Roland Gonzalez marketed the company as a specialist in higher-end rentals, coaching clients to make improvements that Dwellings in many cases would manage, markup, and charge back to property owners. “We actually put a ton of work into our house through working with Roland, like $80,000,” says Katie Drake. She and her husband own a 3-bedroom home in Seaview built in 1910. “Everything honestly went great. We had absolutely no complaints working with Roland. They really delivered what he promised us in terms of rent. Our money was just coming in like clockwork.” She says everything was fine, until it definitely wasn’t.
She says she was about a year into running a business and raising kids after moving with her family to Bend, OR, when she discovered that the rent payments Dwellings had collected from tenants and was supposed to be depositing in her account monthly, had suddenly stopped in early 2026, and that was after a run of late payments in 2025. “We have a checking account that [the rental] only runs through, so the money comes in from Dwellings and the mortgage goes out and we started to overdraft it. So then we noticed that we hadn’t been paid for 3 months.”
Jason Priebe says he was similarly unnerved after noticing from his home in New York that the rent for the townhome at Alki that he co-owns was not landing in his account on time starting in late 2025. He says he would email Dwellings when he noticed they had missed paying him by the 10th of the month and usually get payment within a day, but at the end of July 2026, and after perfecting “the squeaky wheel gets the cash,” he realized that month’s payment was many weeks late and began focusing on reaching Gonzalez. “I got more engaged and texting and emailing him on a more regular basis and I got nothing back—zero. By the third week of August, I sent an email to all [employees] at Dwellings. Again, no response.”
Andrew Edmond and his wife had only been leasing his Lincoln Park home since April of this year, after retiring and moving to Europe with his family, but says he quickly encountered a similar pattern of missed payments: June’s payment was late, though was eventually paid. But after not receiving payments for July or August, and having his and his wife’s many emails go unanswered, he says they filed for termination of the contract and signed with a new property manager. “Many of us have had to write big checks,” he says. Aside from owners needing to pay mortgages and other costs for their home with months of rent payments collected but unreimbursed, signing with the new company means needing to pay their tenants’ deposits anew. “In my case, $6,400 to replenish the account, and out $12,000 in rents.”
By mid-summer, there were a growing number of property owners who had posted reviews on sites like Google and Yelp with similar stories, including this one on the Better Business Bureau site, where Dwellings now has an “F” rating: “Dwellings Seattle property management company has been withholding rental income distributions across my two properties since March 2026 that’s now 6 months of unpaid rent plus the security deposits and owner reserve, total $42,000 missed payments.” Drake says reviews like that helped connect her with an owner who terminated their contract with Dwellings earlier in the year, and it’s how Edmond connected with Drake, which led to the two of them—from Spain and Bend, respectively—to assemble the Dwellings Landlord Impact Group, which includes a website and other tools for property owners who had contracts with Dwellings to respond to what is happening to them. Leveraging social media to make connections, 100 former clients have checked in, with 80 in a What’sApp group. Edmond says former Dwellings employees told them there could be 130 clients total. That leaves as many as 30 owners and their tenants to still reach, with October rent due this week.
STATE LICENSING & OWNERSHIP
Property managers in Washington state are licensed as real estate brokers. That means firms must both have a real estate business license and a licensed managing broker tied to their firm as the designated broker. There can be multiple managing brokers within a firm, but only one is the designated broker, responsible for preparing monthly accounting of funds for clients and records sufficient for state audits, which the state Department of Licensing (DOL) aims to schedule about every 3 years.
Even in the online application for a real estate license, the DOL site is clear about the need, “to appoint a managing broker as the designated broker who has controlling interest in the firm. Controlling interest means that the designated broker has the ability to control the operational and/or financial decisions in the firm. … The Designated Broker must be granted controlling interest, whether or not they have ownership interest.”
The ownership of Dwellings Seattle Inc. is detailed in public records with the Washington Secretary of State (SOS) and Department of Revenue (DOR). Corporate filings with the SOS show Roland Gonzalez, Charlene Anderson and the father of Dwellings’ co-founder as the governors. DOR lists the same people as “owners and officers.” Anderson was designated broker at the firm for many years: “…the glue holding Dwellings together from our earliest days,” according to one of Dwellings’ two websites. No one interviewed mentioned the father having any role in the current operations.
(Screenshot of Dwellings Seattle’s second website)
There was a transition in 2025 when Anderson left the company and a new designated broker took over. Drake says she heard about it from Gonzalez in July: “Roland sent an email to us saying, hey, disbursement’s going to be late this month. Really sorry, we’ve had tons of turnover. Charlene left the company, we’re trying to get above water.”
Brenda Quinones began working as Dwellings’ designated broker in 2025 with a license issued on April 15 of that year. Former Dwellings clients with whom we spoke described her as responsive and eager to help, but when they called about missed payments, they say she regularly deferred questions about money and payments to Gonzalez. “From talking to Brenda, she asked Roland every single month from when she got promoted to this job, to have access to the account, and every month, he just kind of kicked the can down and never granted her access,” Drake says. “It seemed like she also got played, but a lot of us are saying, okay, but you also had a duty to your clients.”
There is now a state investigation under way at the Department of Licensing, where owners say they have filed 35 complaints. At least one of the owners who filed has been contacted by a DOL investigator asking for additional information regarding Quinones and Gonzalez. According to the state licensing website, Quinones’ managing broker license is currently active with a different real estate company, no disciplinary action noted, and with an expiration date in 2027.
While the DOL can take disciplinary action against licensees, including levying fines and suspending or revoking a license, they cannot seize funds or take legal action. “We do not have the authority to recover funds or compensate damages,” says Thomas Charlton, a communications consultant with the DOL.
Repeated calls and emails seeking comment from Gonzalez and Quinones this week have not been answered. Neither has been charged with a crime.
ADDITIONAL INVESTIGATIONS AND COMPLAINTS
The Dwellings Landlord Impact Group started by former clients has become a clearinghouse for property owners, as well as a road map for possible paths forward. Included on the site are the basics about which agencies could receive complaints about what’s happened, and how to file those. For 66 owners, it’s been a place to share details about what they believe they are owed and what actions they’ve taken so far.
One of the avenues that is yielding traction is theft complaints made to the Seattle Police Department, which confirmed to West Seattle Blog that an investigation is now under way by their General Investigations Unit following intake of more than 20 complaints.
We reviewed 18 of those, which contain notes taken by officers talking with complainants during the month of September. All are variations on a theme, with names redacted by SPD.
“He repeatedly contacted XXXX, who never responded, and he never recovered his funds,” “never responded to her emails, text messages, nor phone calls,” “not reachable by phone and they have deactivated their website.” “Dwellings Seattle has yet to respond or abide by their contract,” “since February all communications with “Dwellings Seattle” have been evasive,” “Compl[ainant] stated that the last successful contact with subject XXXX was her email to him about late payments on 6-9-2026. Later emails sent by compl[ainant] were not answered.” “In February and August of this year XXXX was not paid their monthly payment. Per XXXX the staff of Dwellings Seattle all quit in August and he has not been able to get a hold of XXXX since September 1st.”
Just those 18 complaints detail almost $280,000 in unpaid rents and held deposits, an average of a little under $16,000 per client. If there are 130 property owners and similar amounts are unaccounted for, the total could be over $2 million. If SPD does refer the complaints, they would go to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s office, which decides if charges are filed.
One owner who was ahead of the curve has already filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court. Alix Lynch is suing Dwellings Seattle, Inc. for breach of contract and breach of statutory and regulatory duties, citing a laundry list of alleged transgressions during Dwellings’ management of her 3 Seattle rentals: retention of plaintiff’s funds and self-payment of fees, inflated, marked-up and undisclosed charges, and mismanagement of tenancies. The July 14th, 2026 filing details the same kind of complaints made throughout the summer by other owners: “Dwellings collected rents and other income on Plaintiff’s behalf but failed to deposit and remit to Plaintiff the monies due her, in breach of the Agreements and its trust obligations.” The suit details what could easily be more than $50,000 of just rent: 5 months at one condo, 7 months at another, and 4 months for a single-family home.
Owners are also filing civil cases in King County District Court—more than 20 counted so far on the owner’s tally. The civil complaints filed in mid-September that we reviewed are for breach of contract, and have Dwellings Seattle, Inc. and Gonzalez listed in online court records as co-defendants. Drake says she was the first in the group to have Gonzalez served with a summons at his West Seattle home on September 9th. “It is to just get my money back, and it actually is more about just my owner’s payments and my owner’s reserve, which was $10,000. He also owes for my tenant security deposit.” She says that’s another $6,000. The 20-day time frame to respond ends this week. “If I don’t hear back, that is when I start to talk to the court system again, asking for a default judgment.”
Attorneys the owners have talked with have all said getting their money back is unlikely, but they are leaning on strength in numbers, surmising that with a large group of complainants and a significant dollar amount claimed as theft, there is the possibility that a criminal case could be brought due to the aggregate impact. The Landlord Impact Group also includes instructions about filing complaints to the state Attorney General’s office and the FBI. The AG’s Deputy Communications Director Mike Faulk says their policy is to not comment on any complaints unless they’re in litigation; their database shows 33 complaints filed against Dwellings this year, with 23 of them filed in just the last week. One complainant reports receiving an email back from the AG last Thursday saying their complaint had been sent by mail to Dwellings, and the company would have 21 days to respond.
(Screenshot of Dwellings Seattle’s website front page)
Could insurance kick in and cover any of the unpaid funds, or is there maybe a bond? A copy of Dwellings’ property management agreement with owners that was signed in 2025 and provided to WSB for review says, “Dwellings carries insurance customary for property managers,” but does not detail coverages. Other property managers tell us General Liability and Errors & Omissions coverage would be typical, though surety bonds are not. Interestingly, insurance is not required for licensing. “The statutes and rules do not require bonds or insurance for managing brokers or property management firms,” said the DOL’s Charlson.
There’s still the open question of the status of the trust account, which owners say they were told is at the Alaska Junction branch of Wells Fargo Bank. Drake reached out to the branch from Bend with the account number. “I had called them and just said, ‘Can you confirm that this account exists, and that the balance is non-zero,’ and they said, ‘Yes,’ but that’s all they could tell me.”
ONE OF THE LAST
Around the time Jason Priebe and Edmond were realizing they were missing their July payments, and Drake was well past the end of her patience, the owner of a townhouse in Eastlake was signing a new property management agreement with Dwellings. “In the first couple weeks of August, they had recommended a bunch of maintenance things and aesthetic repairs … just to make it more appealing for renters,” says the owner, who prefers not to be identified publicly. The proposed work totaled $12,000. “So we took that on. Then I believe around mid-August, they put it up for rent. Communication was very sparse.”
They say a tenant was found quickly, “Then after that, communication just went completely downhill.” With no response to questions about whether paperwork was needed and even when the tenant was moving in, they say they were surprised to get an email on September 3 from Gonzalez, who related that he had moved their tenant in the previous day and that he’d submitted the move-in report. The email went on to say:
“Unfortunately, I have some very bad news. Our Designated Broker, Brenda, has left … The state requires we have a Designated Broker in order to manage properties. We thus have to cease all activities until we find one. This takes months so we are closing down.” He went on to say, “This is very sad and sudden news. I did not see this coming so abruptly. Have the new PM reach out to us so we can transfer the security deposit to them. We will follow up shortly to release rent funds.”
The owner says that’s when she let the friend who recommended Dwellings and was also renting out her property through them know what she had learned. “I screenshotted the email to her and she was surprised and shocked and she was reaching out to Roland. No response.” She never heard another word from Dwellings. “We haven’t received any refund of our owner contribution. And so, that money is also gone.”
DOL records support what Gonzalez related by email to the homeowner about the date of closure. A DOL employee in the real estate division confirmed by phone that a note on Dwellings’ record shows the “relationship was broken” on September 3, and a Designated Broker Closing Firm/Branch Affidavit was filed on that same day.
VENDORS AND TENANTS
At the same time owners were focused on their own troubles, several mentioned tenants being unable to reach anyone for maintenance issues as communication and responsiveness dropped off this year. That meant in addition to signing on with a new property manager, they had to find one that could quickly handle the maintenance backlog.
There was also the worrying thing that clients mentioned regarding unpaid invoices listed in individual owners’ AppFolio accounts—that’s the accounting platform used to accept rents and payments from owners, and provide accounting of transactions. “We know for sure one of the contractors had not been paid because we called them and they said that the invoice that they have is still open and not paid out,” says the Eastlake owner.
Owners tell WSB they were asked to pre-fund some of the optional work done on their homes and keep a reserve for emergencies so that when bills came in for work that Dwellings managed for them, the money would be there ready to pay to vendors. The Dwellings management contract from 2025 that we reviewed stipulates a $2,000 reserve. But now clients tell us they still see unpaid invoices on their accounts that there should have been money to cover. This is also why the $1 million+ total the Landlord Impact Group has tallied as owed to its 66 participants includes unpaid rents, deposits and owner reserves, which make up 7% of the total.
If a company is hired to do work or deliver materials at a home by a third party and that third party does not pay the company, Washington state law allows the company that provided the service to file a mechanic’s lien against the property where they performed the work. There are many rules and requirements about notification and timing, but if homeowners pay for work to a third party that doesn’t pay the company what’s owed, they can end up having to pay a second time, directly to the supplier or service provider, to resolve the open invoice or a lien.
In reaching out to some of the vendors Dwellings charged as one-time projects or recurring maintenance fees to its clients, one vendor says they have more than 20 outstanding invoices owed to them by Dwellings. That vendor was worried about being quoted by name, but said they will likely have to close their business because they don’t feel right filing liens. “Mechanic’s liens are the only legal pathway, but it’s not fair to homeowners who have already paid the bill.”
Then there is WAC 308-124D-215(4), which says, regarding property management companies, “The firm may provide other services to owners of properties managed provided full disclosure to the owner is provided in writing of the broker’s relationship with any and all persons providing such services, prior disclosure of fees charged, and permission is granted by the owner.”
Listed on several owners’ AppFolio accounting, and viewed by WSB, are a cleaning company owned by a woman who multiple sources say has a familial connection to Roland Gonzalez and also a landscaping company that started in 2024. SOS records for the landscaping company show two governors, one of whom is Brenda Quinones. Most Dwellings clients we talked with say they learned only recently that J&J Seattle Landscaping is run by Quinones’ significant other, and that they were not informed up front by Dwellings about relationships to either company. They say invoices were not provided for J&J’s landscaping maintenance, just a debit shown on their account.
COMMUNITY
“It really sucks that this many people were affected, but also at the same time, it really provides a lot of like comfort and support, knowing that there’s someone else who’s going through this and can help you,” says the Eastlake townhouse owner. “You know, we’ve kind of all banded together and are figuring out, like, how do we get justice for this?”
Justice, of course, looks different for every homeowner. Some are just relieved to have a new property manager taking care of their tenants and home. Edmond says preventing future harm is a big priority, along with “recovery of some or all of the tenant deposits. It sucks losing $18,000.” Drake wants consequences. “People should get in trouble for doing illegal things and right now, to think he’s just sitting at his house, hiding, doesn’t feel like any justice—yet.”
Priebe is taking the long view, with a dose of gratitude. “Business is business and sometimes you run into unscrupulous businesspeople. I want to see Roland held to the law and I think that having this community, we have some people who have our backs. I don’t know that I would have done all this without the community.”
On California Ave SW, the Dwellings office was unstaffed when we stopped by last Wednesday and again today. With full height, unshaded windows, it’s easy to look inside to see a table with piles of unopened mail and a ring of keys. On the door there were three “Sorry we missed you” notes from UPS from the end of August. They were left a week after Edmond sent a certified letter to Dwellings that came back to him, “return to sender.”
Being able to hear from both CEO Gonzalez and former managing broker Quinones about what happened was a priority in reporting this story, with multiple emails and calls placed to try to reach them at their business phone numbers and Dwellings emails. Five days after starting that effort, neither one has stepped forward to tell their story.
Gonzalez’s name has actually appeared in a surprising place on the internet during that time (thanks to Katie Drake for the tip this evening). There’s a new website created (according to multiple domain age identifiers) just last Thursday, purporting to be that of a “home advisor” out of Seattle named Roland Gonzalez, offering “Whole Home Management and Architectural Design Services.” The site says, “He brings together his experiences in construction, design, business consulting, and project management in his approach to residential projects.” but the site does lack something essential: a way to reach him.
(image provided by Andrew Edmond)