660

Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court (www.cnbc.com)

submitted 5 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

152 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 307 points 5 months ago

RealPage is one of the great unrecognized villains of the modern age.

Fun story, a few years back I caught my landlord overbilling me on utilities. I said hey I did the math and you owe me back $X and I'm not paying any more utilities until that amount I'd been overpaying has been used up. My landlord used Realpage for billing, and Realpage said no that's not how it works, we'll get it corrected but you need to keep paying what's in the system or you'll be delinquent. I said go fuck yourself, I have no reason to trust that you and the landlord will adjust it accurately if I give you more money, I'm not obligated to wait until your system figures it out, your system is your problem, not mine. I plan to pay amounts I actually owe and not amounts I don't. They said you really have to. I said hey check it out I think I don't, let's see which one of us is right.

We went back and forth about it for quite some time, including me telling my bank not to accept withdrawals from RealPage (since they started charging me even with emails expressly explaining that they were not authorized to), which made them even more irritated at me and charging me extra fees. I said dude I am more than happy to explain this all to a judge if you want to go that route. They said you really have to pay though, we've worked out the overbill and corrected it but you still have late and returned-payment fees. I said we went over this, go fuck yourself, did I stutter.

When I moved out my landlord tried to not give me back my security deposit until RealPage was happy with my utilities balance. I waited 31 days and then sent them a formal notice that if they didn't return my security deposit I was within my rights to take them to court and get paid triple and planned to do so in 7 days. They said it had all been a big misunderstanding and was there really a need for all this and gave me back my security deposit.

Just talking about it now again makes me amped-up and irritated.

[-] Brekky@lemmy.world 96 points 5 months ago

Good for you though, that was a satisfying read.

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 50 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I mean I'm glad it worked out right in the end. At the time I was just pissed, though.

Also, holy shit, I went back to look up some of the saga in my old emails, and there were definitely parts that were entertaining that I'd totally forgotten about. If you liked reading the summary check this out -- this is a short excerpt from one of some very long email exchanges I had about the whole thing:

Hey, I just logged in to look at sending a check for this month and I still see a balance for last month. Did you decide not to cash my check? I'm not paying additional fees. I'm fine paying for my utilities. Charging me a late fee when I had a credit, that you didn't decide to apply until after the bill was due, is ridiculous. Charging me a fee to store my credit card, when you're refusing to un-store my credit card when I ask you to, is ridiculous. Again my bank's take on it when I talked to them about it was that it "sounds illegal." I'm sorta shocked that people put up with this + do business with you. Anyway let me know - just like last month, I'm fine sending you a check for what I actually owe you.

We have not received a check for your previous balance at this time. Once your check has been applied to the previous balance, you will receive an email notification. Until then, the full balance is still due on your account.

Okay, sure. I just sent via certified mail a check for $248.93. That represents:

$299.96, the amount currently on my account according to you for the past 2 months.

-$4 for the card storage fee from this bill (again, please stop storing my card; your system will not allow me to remove it)

-$4 for the card storage fee from March's invoice

-$8.11 for late fee from March's invoice

-$5.08 for late fee from February's invoice

-$4.84 for late fee from January's invoice

-$25 for returned item fee from January's invoice (I told you not to bill me, because I didn't owe you money - I'm happy that you eventually applied my credit to this balance instead of trying to collect more without authorization, but me putting a stop on you trying to bill me without authorization for money I don't owe you is 100% legitimate)

So in total $248.93. If there's anything above you feel like is justified let me know ... if (management agency) tries to take collection action against me for any of the nonsense above I plan to defend myself. I'm happy paying utilities and will not be paying random additional amounts of money. Hopefully that seems reasonable but whether or not it's acceptable to you, it's what I'll be doing. IDK why you guys do business this way, but best of luck with it I guess. So the check, I sent to this address:

(photo)

Like this:

(photo)

The post office said they couldn't find your address. The best they could find was this (and I swear this is what they showed me, I'm not being funny):

(photo - their address is on Ritchie Road, but the post office I swear to God corrected it to "Bitchie Road")

So, that's where I sent it, certified mail. They said expected delivery is May 25th. Again, best of luck.

There's more, including me threatening to charge them a late fee for the time when they owed me money and weren't willing to credit it back to me, but that's as much as I had time to dig back up right now.

[-] CustodialTeapot@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago

I 100% believe we should charge companies a fee for any mistakes they made that we had to spend time correcting.

I know banks do this in the UK if you complain and they're in the wront.

All companies should do this. Watch how fast they'd fix their shit when there's a fincial penny related to shit service.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

"Corporations are people" in the U.S. when it comes to privileges, but never when it comes to penalties.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (4 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 41 points 5 months ago

They said it had all been a big misunderstanding

They always say this after they try to get away with bullshit.

[-] Stern@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago

"We misunderstood that you would actually lawyer up. Our bad."

[-] TommySalami@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

Not a landlord, but I had a similar excuse thrown at me by a dealership. Towed my car an hour for a recall to a college town because everywhere else was booked for a while. They did close to $1000 of unauthorized work and then threw a fit when I told them I would not be paying for it unless they could show me a signed document where I agreed. When they realized I wasn't a broke college kid after I threatened legal action and to report my car stolen if they were not willing to give it back, I got the "this was a misunderstanding, it never should have went this far" from the owner who had just called me a liar 10minutes prior. Such obvious BS

[-] NielsBohron@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago

They always say this after they try to get away with bullshit.

They, in this case, could refer to banks, other corporations, your boss, politicians, police officers, etc. Anyone in a position of authority will inevitably be tempted to abuse that authority, or at the very least assume that their understanding of the situation is superior to the understanding of those over whom They wield that power. When conflict arises, if you're correct regarding your rights, finances, etc., it's "just a big misunderstanding, and can't we all just get along?" But when They have the legal upper hand in a disagreement, They will fuck you with an iron bar and convince anyone watching that you are a deadbeat trying to pull one over on the rest of your fellow proletariats.

And meanwhile, guess who is constantly buying political influence to ensure they never lose the legal upper hand again?

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] bighi@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

Here in Brazil it’s much simpler because when you rent a place, basic services like electricity and water are transferred to you. So you get the bills, not your landlord.

And services like internet, you hire your own instead of using the ISP hired by your landlord.

[-] FrostyTrichs@lemmy.world 38 points 5 months ago

It isn't consistent in the US. Some landlords or properties include utilities in the price of rent, some don't. Some only include things like trash/water/sewer and it's up to you to source an electric/gas/internet provider.

[-] ThePantser@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

USA landlords own the building so they get to say who your provider is and they will sometimes partner with a specific ISP and that is the only one you are allowed to use.

load more comments (9 replies)

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 9 points 5 months ago

That's usually the US system, but occasionally not. Like a lot of things, there's no consistency; it's just kind of a big freedom free-for-all for better or for worse.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I am glad you got some justice in the situation. Fuck them for making it difficult

I just went through a very long story with a building that uses realpage and they're absolutely scumbags. Fuck Bozzuto is the only way I can sum it up

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 17 points 5 months ago

Dude, good job fighting the system on this! I wish more people were like you!

[-] SoylentBlake@lemm.ee 8 points 5 months ago

Fuck yea man. I don't understand how people can work for sleezebag companies. I know a lot of us have to work, I get it, but I worked phones (retention, the worst) for a credit card company for a bit and I was able to do it on the up, and be legitimately helpful for customers, all while I refused to upsell anything that they didn't want.

I'd get "talked to" about it but I never cared. What's a better experience for the customer? fuck your monthly metrics, the idea is to RETAIN customers, right? Well that starts by not fucking them off so you can make a bonus.

I never got a bonus, and I never cared. I'm of the mind that the product should sell itself, otherwise it's not ready for market. If it's not filling a need then it's a waste of time and frankly, a companies resources. People generally don't forgive corporations, nor should they. It still offends me that if sales weren't what they were expecting it's somehow the people at the bottoms fault, especially when the people writing the shit don't have any need for the product. I won't be moved from this rock. If my sales aren't to your specs, take that back to legal and your ideas guys and tell them to try harder. Weak links can be found in more than one place.

Fwiw, I left the company, they didn't let me go. To this day I refuse to carry debt or even own credit cards tho. Nope, doesn't sit well with me. On the same vein tho, I measure how successful I am by how little I need and how little I spend, not how much I earn. This monopolization of everything has turned me staunchly anti-consumer (in the sense of consumption in general, not heil corporate/anti-customer. Right to repair 100%, revoke charters of those that bad faith skirt the intention). I both rue the reactionary in me, even if came from biological imperative, and fucking LOVE where Ive landed at the same time.

All you need to do in this world to win is kill your internal sense of justice but that's a price too high. Team Rawls for life.

load more comments (4 replies)

[-] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 5 months ago

That is incredible you were able to advocate for yourself that way.

It’s exhausting to have to fight like that for a fair shake. It makes me sad because I know how much energy and focus that takes.
Even if the victims can recoup some money, settlements almost never pay out commensurate with what was financially lost. What’s more is that company and the landlords who utilize it will never be able to repay the people whose effort, happiness, and opportunity they stole.

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 7 points 5 months ago

Yeah it was like my own little holy war. It went on for quite a while. Honestly it's partly that I just like being a pain in the ass and being hostile to people, and this was a golden opportunity where it was warranted.

Think about if all the vitriol that goes into internet political arguments could instead be turned outwards at the people who run the fucked up system. It was a brief moment where that energy was channeled in a productive direction and towards the source of the problem.

[-] JCreazy@midwest.social 77 points 5 months ago

All corporate landlords need to be dissolved. It shouldn't exist. People should not be able to make profit off of housing ever.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 33 points 5 months ago

Cannot say I agree with that last sentence but unlimited profits from housing should absolutely be illegal. I've been dealing with an absolute shit show of a corporate landlord, one that uses realpage, and it's really been eye opening how fucked these companies are. I 100% knew they were scumbag pieces of shit but I got a full dose of the lengths they'll go to in order to make a buck. Just two of the many cost saving measures: letting me go without heat for 3 weeks and letting our elevators stay broken for 6 weeks. I'm convinced the only reason they fixed our elevators is someone must have finally gotten their lawyer on the phone to them.

Absolutely souless garbage humans work for these companies. They sleep fine at night knowing you're paying a lot of money for an apartment you're freezing your ass off in, have to struggle to get in and out of, whatever. They absolutely give zero fucks about the lives they're fucking with.

[-] KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

having to be responsible for the actual property seems to be a good idea.

idk how it's handled in germany, but i'm not aware of stuff this bad. i have someone in my family who has renters, and they either go fix stuff themselves or pay a professional if the heating's acting up again.

and being a renter of someonecs privately owned apartment in a corporate owned house, i feel like being taken care of adequately.

i hope it gets better for you guys.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] cynar@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

There are times that a corporate entity of some description is extremely useful. The issue is for-profit companies.

A simpler solution is to add a tax, based on the property value for for-profit companies. For niche situations, the effect of this will be annoying but not devastating. For companies dedicated to sucking money out of housing, it will hurt them badly. Maybe have it tick up 0.5% of the property a year till it's 5%. Slow enough not to cause a massive shock to the market, but large enough to force a change.

An obvious example of a useful company owned housing situation is a set of apartments. However, here a non profit would work even better.

As for valid for-profit ownership, it does happen. E.g. I know of a veterinary practice that owns several houses. They used them to provide subsided housing to staff, close at hand. They also allow them to house mid to long term locum staff close to the practice. Everyone wins from this arrangement.

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (32 replies)

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 56 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Haha I'm in this picture!

One was small claims court. They kept my security, tried to charge me a exit fee and demanded I pay more for cleanup. Then a late fee for refusing to pay! The idiots sent a manager over to small claims to defend it, who was literally out of her element. The judge kept going, "Where in the lease does it say that?" And this dummy manager didn't know anything, forcing the court to give me my security deposit and drop the fees.

The other was threatening small claims court for an $2k because they ignored my email of my exit date, and tried to charge me a extra month. They immediately "found all my paperwork" all of a sudden and dropped it.

These fuckers are absolutely nickeling and diming people. And more people should be ready to flood the courts with their bullshit.

[-] theangryseal@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago

My uncle is a landlord.

He has NEVER had to pay a security deposit back. The judges in this small town always side with him.

[-] DoctorRoxxo@lemmy.world 24 points 5 months ago

Your uncle is a scum lord

[-] suckmyspez@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago

Sounds like a cunt 👍

load more comments (21 replies)

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 52 points 5 months ago

We need a national renters bill of rights! Rent control is badly needed because no one can afford to live anymore. If America becomes a nation of renters our economy will collapse.

[-] hglman@lemmy.ml 22 points 5 months ago

Everyone should have ownership of their home. I do not know the mechanism for how to transition from rent to ownership, but its the only ethical, economical way.

load more comments (8 replies)

[-] Adalast@lemmy.world 32 points 5 months ago

Just looked at that company's website. Gotta love the frigid mentality that causes them to refer to people's home and shelter as a "business" and talk about "minimizing costs" like it is making fucking dog collars.

If anyone knows how to get in touch with Anonymous, please suggest that they obliterate this dystopian nightmare from the face of the internet.

[-] yo_scottie_oh@lemmy.ml 32 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Well, if this isn’t a classic case of “he said, she said.”

From the article:

“Rather than making independent decisions on what the market here in D.C. calls for in terms of filling vacant units, landlords are compelled, under the terms of their agreement with RealPage, to charge what RealPage tells them,” said [Attorney General of the District of Columbia Brian Schwalb].

Also:

RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions.

So, which one is it?

Regardless, these are some very interesting cases revolving around the Sherman Act as it applies to housing markets.

EDIT: Here’s the video version of the article.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] meyotch@slrpnk.net 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Why isnt ratethelandlord.org more popular?

[-] phx@lemmy.ca 37 points 5 months ago

Because when the deck is stacked against you with even finding a place to rent - let alone one of decent quality at an affordable price - reviews might not be that helpful?

If you're starving, a stale hunk of bread is better than none.

[-] meyotch@slrpnk.net 8 points 5 months ago

Can we engage on this? I feel for the people who are truly on the edge. I would also suggest that organizing those who are still housed to share information for mutual advantage is a cool idea.

load more comments (3 replies)

[-] sevan@lemmy.world 29 points 5 months ago

This is essentially the same way that my employer sets pay ranges.

They send a list of job titles and descriptions to an outside company along with the number of employees and how much each of those employees are paid. Lots of other employers send their info and the outside company tries to match up all the job descriptions and then sends back to all of the employers what the "market range" is for every job.

My employer then decides where in that range they think is "competitive" (hint: its near the bottom). That's the amount HR and Finance are willing to approve when hiring someone into a role, regardless of experience. The wages are only "competitive" if every other employer goes along with the scheme and offers the same amount.

[-] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Competitive wages is jargon for "We'll pay you you the least possible amount of money. It's competitive for us."

Edit: Spelling is important.

[-] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 12 points 5 months ago

My (former) job did that. The firm they hired just flst out omitted every regional job equivalent that paid higher, and kept their scope narrowed to places that paid at least $10k less a year. They then recommended pay cuts everywhere, which mostly amounted to cutting enough labor costs just enough to pay for the contract that did the research.

I took it as a sign to start applying elsewhere: glad I did.

[-] DEngineer@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

In the U.S. (not sure if this is elsewhere) you have the work number too. Employers that participate share every pay period and bonis to your record. Then future employers can look up and see exactly how much you were making when they run the background check.

[-] tygerprints@kbin.social 26 points 5 months ago

This is heartening in some ways, at least it's good news for certain people in that area of the U.S. Here in Utah, tenants have NO rights, and they are told that whenever they sign a lease. There are no options for tenants to retalitate against anything a landlord decides to do.

Of course, almost 100% of our "esteemed" legislatures here are landlords, so they are the one who pass the laws. And in Utah, a landlord is allowed to enter your premises and abscond with any item of furniture or equipment they so desire (if they want your stereo, it's theirs) and there is nothing a tenant can do. Tenants aren't even allowed by law to contact a landlord's place of business, under penalty of fines and jail sentences.

Our legislatures are strengthening landlord laws this session, so things will only get worse and worse for renters here.

[-] xc2215x@lemmy.world 24 points 5 months ago

Good for the renters. Hopefully they can win.

[-] PlantObserver@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

Man this seems like a great target for Anonymous to permanently cripple... 🙏🏼

[-] scoobford@lemmy.zip 14 points 5 months ago

I work in this industry at a decent level with these companies. They regularly try to worm out of contracts, get mixed up in unethical shit, and do things like this. We are literally one step removed from organized crime a lot of the time.

I'm not convinced state housing is the solution, but extensive regulatory oversight is badly needed.

[-] psycho_driver@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Get Yardi too. Same crap wrapped up in a more terrible software package.

[-] paddirn@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

“the software takes empathy out of the equation”

I can’t wait to see how even more callous the software can get when they add “A.I.” to it. Maybe they’ll just cut out the rental office people altogether and all customer service will be with a glorified chat bot.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments

this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024

660 points (99.1% liked)

News

21752 readers

3369 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

rjc@lemmy.world

Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

Blackbeard@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

jeffw@lemmy.world