December 7, 2004
Florida tenants have won a class action suit against Equity Residential Properties, the nation's largest publicly traded apartment landlord. A Palm Beach County judge ruled the company knowingly violated state law by making its tenants pay illegal penalties for terminating their leases early.
The judge ordered Equity to establish a fund of $1,629,380 to compensate tenants who paid the unlawful fees plus interest.
Judge Susan R. Lubitz also ordered Equity to notify all credit agencies to remove more than $15 million in charges from tenants' credit reports. Most of the 14,700 Florida class members did not actually pay the early-termination fees, but did suffer from adverse credit reports.
Lubitz noted that Equity ignored the advice of its own attorney, Donna Barfield, who said in an August 1999 memo that collecting "liquidated damages" equal to 60 days' rent when tenants break their leases was illegal.
A similar case is pending against Gables Residential Trust, a large landlord based in Boca Raton. The tenants have been granted class-action status and a trial is pending.
Equity Residential has more than 80 rental complexes in Florida, comprising about 24,000 units.
