On Thursday, Jan. 20th, a neighbor of VNSTA president Harry Gural found a letter from one of Equity Residential’s attorneys, taped to Gural’s door. The letter, dated Dec. 30th, threatened Gural with eviction for supposed underpayment of rent. Equity Residential claims that he owes $30,979 in overdue rent, despite the fact that he has paid the rent in full.

Although many have assumed that Equity Residential no uses “rent concessions” to circumvent DC rent stabilization laws, this is clearly not true in the case of the tenant association president, who already has paid — in addition to his actual rent — more than $21,000 over five years under a protective order in Landlord and Tenant Court, where in 2016 Equity had filed suit against Gural for refusing to pay an illegal “rent concession” surcharge.

Today, Gural sent a letter to Equity Residential management demanding that the company rescind its threat of eviction and that it stop all such retaliation against him for his work as the president of the Van Ness South Tenants Association.

Follow up: Soon after VNSTA president Harry Gural sent a letter to Equity Residential demanding that the company revoke the legal threat to evict him, Equity Residential responded by saying that it was it was a mistake.

Gural responded with a second letter demanding that Equity Residential stop retaliating against him for his work as tenant association president. For example, although it appears that Equity generally has stopped using the “rent concession” scam to circumvent DC rent stabilization laws, it continues to use it against Gural, claiming that he owes the company more than $34,000 in overdue rent, even though he has paid his rent in full. He has been forced to pay more than $21,000 under a protective order in the Landlord & Tenant Branch of DC Superior Court — even though he has paid his rent in full.