Court finds that Equity Residential overcharged tenant president by almost $47,000 — orders restitution

The Office of Administrative hearings yesterday issued a final ruling in the case of Harry Gural v. Equity Residential / Smith Property Holdings Van Ness LP, ordering Equity Residential to VNSTA president Gural $46,798 plus $13,090 in interest — a total of $59,888.

Gural followed his complaint against Equity Residential in August 2016, claiming that the company was charging him $297 per month more than DC law allows in a rent-stabilized building. The increase demanded by Equity was almost 20%, whereas the maximum legal increase that year was only 3.5%.

The reason Gural filed his initial complaint in the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) is that almost 100 residents of 3003 Van Ness came to him asking for help fighting extremely large rent increase demands by Equity Residential, some almost as high as $1,500 per month. After much negotiation between those tenants and Equity, the company usually offered a large “discount” — which it called a “rent concession” — so that the actual rent increase would be much lower. However, the effective rent increase was often substantially higher than allowed by DC law.

Because so many residents and members of the tenant association reported such problems with the $27 billion Equity Residential, Gural refused to sign a new lease with a fraudulent, inflated amount listed as the “rent.” Equity subsequently filed suit against him in the Landlord and Tenant Branch of DC Superior Court, getting the judge to force Gural to pay $297 per month under a “protective order,” which (wrongfully) assumed that Equity’s argument was correct. Over the course of eight years, Gural has been forced to pay out of pocket $29,474 into court escrow.

The Office of Administrative hearings ruled in favor of Equity Residential in 2017, accepting the corporation’s novel interpretation of the word “rent,” which the company complained could exceed the actual rent paid by hundreds of dollars per month.

Gural appealed the OAH decision to the Rental Housing Commission, which in 2020 overturned the lower court decision, agreeing with Gural that the word “rent” has its plain English meaning. Specifically, “the Commission concluded that the phrase "rent charged" is intended to refer to the rent actually demanded or received from a tenant…”

The case moved slowly in 2020-22 with multiple delays due to the COVID pandemic. In 2023 and 2024, proceedings and filings came in a flurry as the date for another formal hearing in the Office of Administrative Hearing approached.

At a hearing in February 2024, Equity Residential property manager for 3003 Van Ness, Josh Luper, claimed that he did not know the meaning of the word “rent,” affirming Equity’s claim that the “rent” can exceed the amount paid by hundreds of dollars.

Even in its closing arguments for the case, Equity Residential claimed that it could not possibly have known the meaning of the word “rent.”

Finally, on August 28, 2024, the Administrative Law Judge in the Office of Administrative Hearings issued a final ruling in the case, finding that Equity Residential had overcharged Harry Gural — as he had claimed eight years ago. The judge ordered Equity Residential to pay Gural $46,798 for the overcharges, plus $13,090 in interest — a total of almost $60,000 ($59,888).

Given the thousands of hours and eight years that Gural has spent fighting Equity in court over the simple meaning of the word “rent,” a $60,000 award represents less than minimum wage.

Gural had argued that Equity’s overcharges were made in bad faith, which by DC law would mean that Equity would be compelled to pay him triple the amount of the overcharges. However, the judge ruled that Equity did not act in bad faith because she did not believe that it acted out of “sinister motives” or the “intent to deceive or defraud.” Gural had pointed out in his rebuttal to Equity Residential’s final arguments that it is extremely unlikely that a $27 billion Real Estate Investment Trust, a Fortune 500 company with upscale properties in major cities around the United States, did not know the meaning of the word “rent.”

Furthermore, he has pointed out that Equity Residential continued to overcharge him despite losing three court cases on the rent issue, including the DC Attorney General’s case, District of Columbia vs. Equity Residential Management, which forced Equity Residential to pay $1 million in restitution to residents of 3003 Van Ness.

Either party in Harry Gural v. Equity Residential may appeal the OAH decision within 10 business days of the date of the August 28th final ruling.

See a chronology of the entire case at this link.

Tenant association president calls for triple penalties in "rent concession" case

Harry Gural, president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association, filed his 41-page closing arguments along with 81 pages of exhibits in his eight-year legal battle against Equity Residential for overcharging him using its “rent concession” scam. Gural is requesting that the court force Equity Residential to pay him more than $150,000 penalties — three times the amount that Equity has overcharged him over this period — as required by law when the landlord overcharges a tenant in bad faith.

In response, Equity Residential filed its final arguments, restating its claim that before recent related court decisions it did not know the meaning of the word “rent.”

DC law states that in older buildings that are subject to rent stabilization, property owners may raise the rent annually by a maximum of 2% plus inflation. In order to circumvent the law, Equity Residential wrote leases with “rent” amounts that far exceeded the actual rent paid, claiming that the “rent charged” could be $1,000 or more per month higher than the rent that is actually charged.

Equity Residential had invented a new definition of the word “rent” — one that was neither in a standard English dictionary in in DC law.

Using its own definition of the word “rent” and the words “rent charged,” Equity Residential in 2016 demanded that Gural pay a rent increase of 20% ($297 per month) instead of the 3.5% ($65) allowed by law.

As president of the tenant association, Gural contacted the office of DC Attorney General Karl Racine in 2016, requesting help for other tenants who complained that Equity Residential had demanded that they pay rent increases of $1,000 or more per month. In 2022, a judge in DC Superior Court handed down a $2 million judgment against Equity Residential for deceiving and overcharging its customers at 3003 Van Ness.

However, the judgment affected only residents of 3003 Van Ness, despite the fact that Equity Residential appears to have used the same rent scam in its other six rent-stabilized properties.

Gural’s case against Equity Residential is distinct from the Attorney General’s case — he had filed the complaint before the Attorney General decided to sue Equity Residential on behalf of the residents of 3003 Van Ness.

In 2020, Gural won the main part of his case on appeal to the Rental Housing Commission (RHC), which issued a strong decision in his favor confirming that the word “rent” in DC law has its plain English meaning, i.e., the amount a person pays for the right to occupy a rental unit. The RHC sent the case back down to the Office of Administrative Hearings for a final decision on related issues, including Gural’s claim that Equity had retaliated against him for his work assisting other tenants.

Nevertheless, eight years after Gural filed his initial complaint, Equity Residential continues to claim that it could not possibly have known the meaning of the word “rent” before the 2020 RHC decision and a related case, Gabriel Fineman v. Smith Property Holdings, or before it lost the Attorney General’s case against it, District of Columbia v. Equity Residential.

While Gural’s tenant petition in the Office of Administrative Hearings against Equity Residential has been litigated over eight years, Equity Residential’s lawsuit against Gural in DC Superior Court over the same issues has been on hold. However, Equity convinced the court in 2016 to force Gural to pay $297 per month into escrow to protect the company’s interests — Gural has now paid $29,474 to date. Moreover, Equity claims that Gural owes the company more than $50,000.

The law calls for restitution to the tenant of three times the amount of the overcharge in the case of bad faith. Gural has asked the court for triple the overcharges — more than $150,000 — because Equity has continued to overcharge Gural despite several court decisions finding that it’s novel definition of the word “rent” is wrong.

In response to Equity Residential’s closing arguments, Gural submitted his final rebuttal — a short overview of the case that points out that Equity continues to object to the simple definition of the English word “rent” and the phrase “rent charged,” despite the fact that the Rental Housing Commission has ruled against Equity’s claim that a radically different definition could apply. In response to Gural’s final rebuttal, Equity filed its own rebuttal — again claiming a novel definition of the word “rent.”

Both parties await a final decision by the Chief Justice of the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Tenant association president threatens Equity Residential with legal action over poor security

Harry Gural, president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association, today sent a letter to Equity Residential, requesting that it repair broken exterior doors within two weeks — or face possible legal action in Housing Conditions Court.

For well more than a year, the tenant association has repeatedly asked Equity Residential to fix broken exterior doors and locks, presenting evidence of dozens of videos showing that it is easy to enter 3003 Van Ness without a fob. Equity has promised to repair the doors, but some doors have remained broken for months. Broken doors are a violation of DC Housing Code, 14 DCMR 705.5.

In the past, the DC Metropolitan Police Department has referred Equity Residential to the DC Attorney General for possible prosecution for poor security under the Drug-, Firearm-, or Prostitution-Related Nuisance Abatement Law.

The tenant association for a long time has argued that Equity Residential, a Real Estate Investment Trust with a market capitalization of approximately $23 billion, must provide adequate security at its property at 3003 Van Ness.

Read the entire letter at this link.

“I am contacting you to request repairs of DC housing code violations in common areas of 3003 Van Ness. If the three security doors are not repaired within the two weeks, I intend to file a complaint against Equity Residential Management in DC Housing Conditions Court.”

— Letter to Equity Residential

Mayor's Office of Legal Counsel denies VNSTA's appeal of DHCD denial of FOIA request

The Mayor’s Office of Legal counsel today denied an appeal by the Van Ness South Tenants Association regarding the denial of a FOIA request by the DC Department of Housing and Community Development.

The FOIA request by VNSTA stated:

We request the most up-to-date draft version of the Rent Control Housing Database mandated by DC law under §42–3502.03c. Public Accessible Rent Control Housing Database.

We request access to an operational version of the database so we can review its functioning before it is released to the public later this year.

VNSTA’s appeal of the DHCD denial of the initial request stated:

There is an urgent public need for a publicly accessible database of rents, which was mandated by the DC Council via a the “Rent Control Housing Clearinghouse Amendment Act of 2015 (B21-0119).” The District of Columbia has failed to deliver the database for eight years, depriving DC residents of important information that likely would slow the rising cost of rental housing.

The appeal also argued that:

If the database had been produced in a timely manner, renters, the DC Council, and the press could have used the historical information to easily detect the “rent concession” scam, by which some landlords falsely reported rents and systematically overcharged customers.

VNSTA president files legal motion to interview Equity senior employees under oath

Harry Gural, president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association, today filed a legal brief with the DC Office of Administrative Hearings, requesting the right to question senior Equity employees and other staff under oath, otherwise known as conducting depositions. The brief also requested the right to compel Equity Residential to provide documents pertaining to its efforts to illegally raise Gural’s rent using so-called “rent concessions,” a method that Equity has used to circumvent the rent stabilization provisions of DC law.

Today’s filing is part of a seven-year battle with Equity Residential and its subsidiary, Smith Property Holdings Van Ness LP, which began when the tenant association received dozens of complaints from residents of 3003 Van Ness that Equity Residential was demanding rent increases that far exceeded what are permissible under rent stabilization (a maximum of inflation plus 2% annually for renters under age 62).

Residents reported that Equity was demanding rent increases of several hundred dollars per month up to more than $1,500 per month, by falsely claiming that the current rent charged was far above the amount actually paid. Gural reported this practice to the office of former Attorney General Karl Racine, which filed suit against Equity Residential, winning $1 million in restitution for residents who were overcharged plus legal fees.

After losing two seminal cases in court, including an appeal by Gural to the Rental Housing Commission, and after the passage of a law clarifying that the words “rent charged” in DC rental housing law mean “the rent that is actually charged,” Equity Residential appears to have ceased using the “rent concession” scam — except in the case of VNSTA president Harry Gural. Gural argues that this is a clear act of retaliation against him for his advocacy on behalf of tenants, and his successful effort to put an end to the rent concession scam citywide.

Equity Residential has overcharged Gural by almost $50,000, of which he has been forced to pay almost $25,000 over seven years, in addition to his monthly rent.

Gural plans to seek damages from Equity Residential and its subsidiary, Smith Property Holdings Van Ness LP. DC law calls for damages up to triple the overcharges, and also calls for $5,000 for each act of retaliation against a member of a tenant association. In addition, Gural seeks compensation for the more than 1,000 hours he has spent working on his case and on related tasks that have occupied much of his time over the past seven years.

In addition, he seeks punitive damages on behalf of Equity customers who were overcharged via the “rent concession” scam, including other residents of 3003 Van Ness and of several other Equity Residential / Smith Property Holdings apartment buildings in DC.

VNSTA warns Equity Residential about circumventing Tenants Option to Purchase Act

The Van Ness South Tenants Association today sent a letter to Equity Residential management about the ownership of 3003 Van Ness, stating "the tenants association’s intention to fully consider its legal right to the first opportunity to purchase the property if it is put up for sale."

The letter cites the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), which was circumvented when the property effectively changed hands in 2007 and 2013. The letter simply states that current tenants should be able to exert their legal right to consider purchase of the building.

“It is not clear whether residents would choose the purchase the building given the many problems documented in our recent report, ‘Structural Problems, Security Issues and Safety Hazards’ and the dozens of reports we have received about chronic maintenance issues in individual apartments. However, we intend to give residents a chance to fully consider this option before a sale is made to another party.”

The letter points out that the actual current owner of 3003 Van Ness is not Equity Residential but Smith Property Holdings Van Ness LP. Furthermore, the letter states that Smith may be in violation of an agreement it made with the Van Ness South Tenants Association when it purchased 3003 Van Ness:

Smith Property Holdings Van Ness LP appears to be in violation of a legal agreement it made with the Van Ness South Tenants Association as a condition of residents ceding their TOPA rights and enabling Smith to purchase 3003 Van Ness from JMB/Van Ness Associates in 1996. The 13-page memo of understanding guarantees certain conditions, including those pertaining to maintenance, building security, key control, building access, repair of roof leaks, elevators and broken doors and locks, hot water, cleanliness, staffing, amenities, laundry facilities, trash, and a “rent-to-own” program. The MOU calls for standards of “cleanliness, orderliness, organization [and] quality,” that “shall in no event be inferior to the standards maintained by owners of comparable properties in comparable locations.” Evidence suggests that Smith may in violation of many of these provisions.

The letter also states that the tenants association likely would oppose any effort to sell the property so investors can redevelop it and remove it from the DC rent stabilization program.

Read the entire letter