The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reportedly preparing to sue Greystar Real Estate Partners, the country’s largest apartment landlord, claiming the firm charged tenants hidden fees.
Greystar manages more than 108,000 units. The Wall Street Journal, sourcing its coverage from an unnamed “person familiar with the matter,” reports the civil lawsuit could charge Greystar with enacting deceptive pricing practices and failed to properly disclose certain fees to prospective tenants when advertising its rental units. The fees included services including pest control, trash removal and tenant background checks.
The FTC finalized its hidden fees rule last month, although the new rule did not include the multifamily sector.
The lawsuit, if filed, would occur with only one week left with Biden appointee Lina Khan as the chairperson of the FTC. As the Biden administration winds down, it has also churned out a late cycle of lawsuits from the US Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against major companies in the housing industry.
Greystar pushed back on the notion that the company was cheating its tenants.
“Greystar has worked hard to lead the industry toward improved fee disclosures and has taken proactive steps over the last several years to promote greater fee transparency,” a Greystar representative told The Wall Street Journal. “The most effective path to achieving uniform and consistent fee disclosures across the industry is through clear regulatory guidelines which do not yet exist in the rental space.”
