Baltimores Kushnerville Tenants File Class Action Against Landlord
Reprinted with permission from ProPublica.
Tenants of the Baltimore-area apartment complexes owned by Jared Kushner’s real-estate company have brought a class-action lawsuit against the firm’s property management arm over its aggressive pursuit of tenants for allegedly unpaid rent.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Circuit Court for Baltimore City, alleges that the management company and related corporate entities have been improperly inflating payments owed by tenants by charging them late fees that are often unfounded and court fees that are not actually approved by any court. This, the lawsuit charges, sets in motion a vicious cycle in which tenants’ rent payments are partly assessed toward the fees instead of the actual rent owed, thus deeming the tenant once again “late” on his or her rent payment, leading to yet more late fees and court fees. Making matters worse, the 5 percent late fees are frequently assessed on principal that includes allegedly unpaid fees, not just the rent itself. Tenants are pressured to pay the snowballing bills with immediate threat of eviction, the suit alleges.
“The routine practice of charging tenants illegal fees combined with filing eviction proceedings against tenants who have paid their rent on time is predatory and destructive to hard-working Marylanders and their families. This is yet another example of corporations profiting from deceptive policies,” said Chelsea Ortega of Santoni, Vocci & Ortega, a Baltimore-area firm that has also brought class-action suits for similar “fee-churning” practices against two other large property management companies in the area. In this case, the firm is working with Brown Goldstein & Levy, a Baltimore firm specializing in civil rights cases, and the Public Justice Center, a civil legal aid office based in Baltimore that has also brought cases against area landlords over similar practices.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/baltimores-kushnerville-tenants-file-class-action-landlord/
From all appearances this character Kusher, doesn't mind being a slum lord, just like his boss
