NC Attorney General Sues 6 Landlords Accused of Illegally Raising Rent Prices
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson took legal action Tuesday against six landlords accused of illegally raising rent prices in the state.
The United States Department of Justice joined North Carolina in the lawsuit, along with nine other states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington. It was filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
The North Carolina Attorney General’s Office alleges Greystar Real Estate Partners, Blackstone’s LivCor, Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield, Pinnacle Property Management Services, Willow Bridge Property Company, and Cortland Management illegally worked together and with the software company RealPage to raise rent prices for North Carolina residents.
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According to the attorney general’s office, the six landlords own or manage more than 70,000 units throughout the state, mostly in the Triangle and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg areas.
The lawsuit against the landlords is part of an ongoing bipartisan case against RealPage, which began last August. RealPage is accused of exploiting landlords’ competitively sensitive information to create a pricing algorithm in violation of antitrust laws, resulting in renters paying inflated prices.
Jackson alleges the landlords communicated with RealPage and each other to share non-public information about rent prices, occupancy, strategies for setting rents, and discounts, allowing landlords using RealPage’s products to set higher prices for rent than competitive market forces would have set.
North Carolinians are struggling to afford their rent as it is,” Jackson said in a statement. “We won’t stand for landlords and real estate companies making the problem worse to line their own pockets I’m suing these landlords to make sure they play by the rules so North Carolinians can get fair prices for rent.”
Source: Yahoo! News
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