|
| BARKALOW Class Action | HOME PAGE | Small Claims | CLARK Class Action |
March 30, 2016
Iowa Press Citizen: Andy Davis
A proposed settlement filed jointly this week by the Iowa Tenants' Project and Apartments Downtown, Iowa City's largest landlord, includes repayment to tenants that could amount to $1 million.
Chris Warnock, the attorney for Iowa Tenants' Project representing about 14,000 tenants in the suit, said Wednesday that if the settlement is approved at a July 18 hearing, tenants and subtenants who rented from Apartments Downtown or Apartments Near Campus during lease terms between 2010 and 2014 will receive $65 for each year of their tenancy.
Payments to tenants could total roughly $1 million, Warnock said. In addition to the repayments, the suit establishes an ongoing partnership between Apartments Downtown and Iowa Tenant's Project, an Iowa City-based group that has pursued a number of class-action and small claims cases against Iowa City area landlords.
The Iowa Tenant's Project initially filed for the class-action lawsuit in December 2010 on behalf of former tenant Michael Conroy and other renters, alleging the landlord was charging illegal fees and withholding unreasonable amounts from security deposits.
The suit argued that the lease violated tenants’ rights by charging an automatic carpet cleaning fee, regardless whether the carpet was clean; having provisions that shifted responsibility for repair and maintenance to tenants, including in common areas of a building; and including a variety of illegal fees, penalties and other charges.
Leases were dramatically changed after 2014, Warnock said.
Warnock said tenants who rented between 2010 and 2014 can find more information and register to collect repayment at adisettlement.com. Former tenants will be asked to provide a building address and apartment number. If former tenants cannot remember those details, Warnock said roommate names or the number of bedrooms in the apartment will be accepted.
"As people register, the information that is provided is actually going to have to be compared to the leases on file for verification," Warnock said.
More important than the repayments, Warnock said, is a partnership that would be forged between Apartments Downtown and the Iowa Tenants' Project. Current tenants and those who may rent from Apartments Downtown, Apartments Near Campus and Apartments at Iowa over the next three lease terms will have the opportunity to be represented by the Tenant's Project.
"What we've agreed to is, if you have a problem as a tenant, you first need to make a complaint with the landlord. If they don't resolve that complaint to your satisfaction within 10 days, then you can come to the Tenants' Project, and the Tenants' Project will try to informally resolve it, and if we can't work it out go to court," Warnock said. "While we're doing that, the landlord is paying us. Apartments Downtown will be paying the Tenants' Project for us to represent their tenants against them."
The intention is to make the relationship between tenants and landlords less adversarial, he said.
"What we're wanting to do is sit down and work together to try to work out a solution. They've taken a real leap of faith on this one," Warnock said.
Apartments Downtown, owned by the Clark family, expressed its approval of the proposed settlement in a statement issued Wednesday.
"Apartments Downtown is aiming to create a better rental culture, really appreciates their past, present and future tenants and wants Iowa City to be a renter friendly community," Apartments Downtown said in the statement.
For further information go to the Iowa Tenants' Project Contact Page