Hellmuth & Johnson announces it has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of its client Barry Sewall and a proposed class who have entered into misleading and onerous form leases with Home Partners of America and Pathlight Property Management.
According to the complaint, Defendants Home Partners of America, Inc., HP Minnesota I LLC, and Pathlight Property Management, Inc. have perpetrated a fraudulent scheme on tenants and potential buyers of single-family homes in violation of landlord-tenant and consumer fraud laws. Defendants are among many big investors who are purchasing swaths of homes across the country in all-cash transactions, displacing individual home buyers in the real estate market and shifting the burden of maintaining their properties onto their tenants.
The complaint alleges that tenants are induced to rent and then forced to pay out-of-pocket to repair damage to Defendants’ properties that tenants did not cause, while not receiving any reduction of rent in return. Defendants often ignore repair requests or refuse to make even basic repairs, including those affecting health or safety. The complaint further alleges that tenants are required to pay for so-called “liability coverage” insurance and then asked by Defendants to make claims against that insurance to cover structural and other damage to Defendants’ properties that Defendants, not Tenants, are required to repair. Plaintiff seeks damages, including the return of his security deposit.
Mr. Sewall and the proposed class are represented by Anne T. Regan and Lindsey L. Larson of Hellmuth & Johnson, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hellmuth & Johnson attorneys have extensive experience in complex litigation in federal and state courts across the country and have been appointed as lead counsel in numerous class actions.
Click here for a copy of the complaint filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, where Home Partners is located. For more information about the case, contact Hellmuth & Johnson partner Anne T. Regan at (952) 460-9285.
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