Former landlord here. This is NOT typical. You are NOT responsible for maintenance--that is the landlord's responsibility (obviously, if you break something, you are responsible for repair costs--but not routine maintenance, and certainly not appliances (again, unless you did something to cause the issue).

They are using the Mgt Company as a buffer because they don't want have direct interaction with their tenants. Fine. But this will cause massive headaches for your friend (when it comes to maintenance requests or reporting problems with the unit).

I'd look elsewhere.