The following article by Alec MacGillis was posted on the ProPublica.org website July 23 2018:
A state judge declined to dismiss the suit filed by apartment residents who claim they were charged inappropriate and excessive fees.
A Maryland judge is allowing a class action lawsuit against Jared Kushner’s family real estate company to proceed, in a ruling that denies most of the company’s arguments to dismiss the case over its treatment of tenants at large apartment complexes in the Baltimore area.
The lawsuit, filed last September in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, alleges that the Kushner Companies’ real estate management arm, Westminster Management, has been improperly inflating payments owed by tenants by charging them late fees that are often baseless and in excess of state laws limiting them to 5 percent of rent. The suit also claims that Westminster was making some tenants pay so-called court fees that are not actually approved by any court. The suit alleges that the late fees and court fees set in motion a vicious churning cycle in which rent payments are partly put 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. Tenants are pressured to pay the snowballing bills with immediate threat of eviction, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit followed a May 2017 article co-published by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine that described the highly aggressive legal tactics used by Kushner Companies to pursue tenants and former tenants at 15 apartment complexes in the Baltimore area.