Contents
- 1 Class action lawsuit filed against RealPage following ProPublica investigation
- 1.1 class action
- 1.2 Class Actions
- 1.3 Class Action Settlements
- 1.4 Defense against class action lawsuits
- 1.5 What is antitrust law for dummies?
- 1.6 Did renters sue Richardson based RealPage landlords?
- 1.7 What is the antitrust lawsuit against RealPage?
- 1.8 What company makes rent setting software for apartments accused of collusion?
- 1.9 What is Apartment software?
- 1.10 What lawsuit was filed against Google?
Class action lawsuit filed against RealPage following ProPublica investigation
After a ProPublica investigation raised questions about whether the country’s largest landlords indirectly coordinate rental rates through software sold by RealPage, a group of tenants filed a lawsuit against the Texas-based company.
A total of nine landlords who control thousands of apartments, including those on Capitol Hill in downtown Seattle, have allegedly formed a cartel to artificially inflate rents above competitive levels through price-fixing and other antitrust violations. They are accused of sharing data and using software from RealPage, a Richardson, Texas-based company that sells revenue management software.
class action
Class action lawsuits are a common way for people who have been harmed by a large corporation to seek justice. They give these injured individuals strength in numbers by allowing them to act as a group against the accused, which can make it easier for them to hire a lawyer.
The plaintiffs in this case, a group of tenants, allege that RealPage and nine major property management companies violated federal antitrust laws by forming a cartel to manipulate apartment rent prices.
They allege the companies used a software program called YieldStar to push rents above competitive levels, which they say is illegal.
The lawsuit alleges that the software helps real estate companies increase their rents by leaking private information about their competitors’ pricing and listing data, which they share with each other without revealing it to the public. This allows them to create an artificial market, effectively turning the law of supply and demand on its head.
Class Actions
After ProPublica published an article in October raising concerns about RealPage and its YieldStar software, several class-action lawsuits were filed against the company. These lawsuits allege that the technology allowed major property management firms to conspire to skyrocket rents across the country.
A lawsuit filed in San Diego alleges that nine of the nation’s largest real estate managers used RealPage software to collide rental rates. Another, filed in Seattle, says a group of 10 landlords with more than 9,000 Seattle apartments all used RealPage pricing software to set rents.
The plaintiffs – Sherry Bason, Lois Winn, Georges Emmanuel Njong Diboki, Julia Sims, Sophia Woodland and two University of Washington students – say that RealPage and the landlords acted in an illegal conspiracy to inflate rents, by allowing property managers to share detailed information and “competitively sensitive” information.
The plaintiffs said that RealPage led numerous trade associations and summits where landlords, representing the vast majority of the rental market, agreed on prices – often dictated by RealPage itself. It also encouraged executives from landlords such as Greystar, Lincoln and Cushman to serve on subcommittees attending these events.
Class Action Settlements
After ProPublica released an investigation raising concerns that RealPage and nine of the nation’s largest property managers are pushing rent rates above competitive levels, facilitating price fixing, or both, tenants filed a class-action lawsuit against the Texas-based proptech and its clients. The lawsuit is a potential game changer and brings a fresh scrutiny of algorithm-based pricing across a variety of industries.
The lawsuit alleges that property managers and RealPage conspired to artificially inflate rents in Seattle above competitive levels. They exchanged private competitor data via RealPage’s YieldStar software and agreed to set prices above the market average.
They are also staggering lease extensions to avoid a “race to the bottom” on rents, the lawsuit says. The alleged collusion has been so pervasive that it has essentially eliminated competition in many markets.
The lawsuit names Essex Property Trust, Equity Residential, AvalonBay Communities, Lincoln Property Co. and FPI Management as defendants. With more than 19 million homes under management in the United States, they are one of the nation’s largest corporate landlords.
Defense against class action lawsuits
A class-action lawsuit has been filed by a group of tenants from California and Washington after a ProPublica investigation raised concerns that RealPage’s software erodes competition and drives up rents. It claims that RealPage’s rental pricing software helps property managers keep their prices high by providing them with information on how to coordinate supply levels and avoid price competition.
The lawsuit alleges that the Richardson, Texas-based company’s pricing software helps landlords stagger lease renewals to artificially offset market fluctuations that would otherwise result in a race to the bottom in rents. It also provides landlords with information on how to keep vacant units unoccupied for long periods of time.
The lawsuit targets nine of the country’s largest residential property management firms. These include Greystar Real Estate Partners, Lincoln Property Company, Mid-America Apartment Communities, FPI Management, Equity Residential, Avenue5 Residential, Thrive Communities Management and Security Properties.
What is antitrust law for dummies?
Are antitrust laws good or bad? By preventing mergers and acquisitions, antitrust laws impede the most efficient allocation of capital. These laws protect inefficient managers at the expense of greater economic benefit.
What are the big 3 antitrust laws?
The three most important federal antitrust laws are:
- The Sherman Antitrust Act.
- The Clayton Act.
- The Federal Trade Commission Act.
What is the most important antitrust law?
The Sherman Act prohibits “any treaty, combination or conspiracy to restrict trade” and any “monopoly, attempted monopoly, or conspiracy or combination to monopolize”. The Supreme Court long ago ruled that the Sherman Act does not ban all trade restrictions, only those that…
What are the three main ways antitrust laws are enforced?
Federal antitrust laws are enforced in three primary ways: criminal and civil enforcement actions brought by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice. Federal Trade Commission Civil Enforcement Actions. Lawsuits by private individuals to assert claims for damages.
What is the main purpose of antitrust law?
The FTC’s competitive mission is to enforce the rules of the competitive marketplace—the antitrust laws. These laws encourage strong competition and protect consumers from anti-competitive mergers and business practices.
What is antitrust law in simple terms?
Essentially, these laws prohibit business practices that unduly deprive consumers of the benefits of competition, resulting in higher prices for products and services.
What was the first antitrust law and its purpose?
The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, approved on July 2, 1890, was the first federal law outlawing monopolistic business practices. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890 was the first measure outlawing trusts passed by the US Congress.
What are the main points in the antitrust laws?
It forbids all agreements and conspiracies to restrict trade and commerce. These prohibited restrictions include price fixing, market sharing, boycotts, bid rigging and tying agreements. The Sherman Act also prohibits the monopoly or attempted monopoly of any trade.
What is the antitrust main elements?
The Sherman Act codifies the main antitrust offenses – conspiracy to restrict trade, monopoly, attempted monopoly and conspiracy to monopolize.
What are antitrust laws for dummies?
Antitrust laws are laws designed by governments to protect consumers from predatory business practices and to ensure fair competition. Antitrust laws are applied to a wide range of questionable business activities, including market sharing, bid-rigging, price-fixing and monopolies.
Did renters sue Richardson based RealPage landlords?
Tenants in California have filed a class-action lawsuit against Richardson-based RealPage, which has come under fire after a ProPublica report examining how its proprietary algorithm helped landlords raise rents to record levels.
What is RealPage used for? RealPage provides a technology platform that enables real estate owners and managers to transform the way people experience and use rental space. Clients use the platform to gain visibility into asset performance, leverage data insights and monetize space to generate additional revenue.
How long do you have to sue a landlord in California?
Generally, you have three years to sue for statutory liability, which could include bail because they are governed by a specific law.
How do I file a claim against my landlord in California?
The California Department of Consumer Affairs can assist with landlord-tenant relationship questions or complaints, including repair issues, safety violations, and violations of the Health and Safety Code. For more information, call (800) 952-5210 or visit www.dca.ca.gov.
What can I sue my landlord for in California?
Landlords can legally terminate tenants for non-payment of rent, violation of other lease terms, or damage to the rental property. If none of these reasons apply and you think your landlord is trying to evict you illegally, you can sue them.
What is the antitrust lawsuit against RealPage?
Broadly speaking, plaintiffs’ attorneys allege that the RealPage software enabled rental property owners to collude to increase rents. The lawsuits followed a ProPublica exposé last October about RealPage’s rent-setting algorithm, which in turn led to requests for investigations from Congress.
What is the RealPage controversy? HOUSING — Across the country, renters are fighting back after a ProPublica investigation found RealPage, a big tech firm based in Texas, is helping a cartel of business owners raise rents sharply. To date, RealPage and its corporate clients have been hit with more than 20 lawsuits.
What lawsuit was filed against Google?
In 2020, the Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing search engines and search advertising, which are separate markets from the digital advertising technology markets addressed in today’s lawsuit. The Google search lawsuit is scheduled to be heard in September 2023.
What company is suing Google?
The Justice Department and eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of unfair competition through its dominance of the online advertising market and calling for it to be broken up. The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a big tech company.
Has anyone won a lawsuit against Google?
In 2016, a Texas jury awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies $5 million in a patent lawsuit against Google. The patent allegedly covered the use of hash tables with garbage collection and separate chaining in the Red Hat Linux kernel. Google and Bedrock later settled the case and the verdict was overturned by the court.
What did the DOJ file a lawsuit against Google for?
The Department of Justice, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia, has filed a civil antitrust complaint against Google for monopolizing several digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act .
Has anyone won a lawsuit against Google?
In 2016, a Texas jury awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies $5 million in a patent lawsuit against Google. The patent allegedly covered the use of hash tables with garbage collection and separate chaining in the Red Hat Linux kernel. Google and Bedrock later settled the case and the verdict was overturned by the court.
Is Google in trouble with the government?
The Justice Department and states including California, New York, Colorado, and Virginia filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search and advertising giant had eroded the online advertising market through years of proprietary trading, anti-competitive acquisitions, and forcing users to use . …
What company makes rent setting software for apartments accused of collusion?
RealPage, a Texas-based company behind software called YieldStar, is facing a Justice Department investigation. The company was accused of facilitating agreements with landlords through its software and driving rents above market values.
Who created the rental price brake? Then-Senator and current Congressman Jim Costa and then-Conventionman Phil Hawkins introduced the Costa-Hawkins Rentals Act. The law was signed into law by the California State Legislature on July 24, 1995.
What is Apartment software?
Apartment management software are tools that make routine tasks like tracking and storing tenant information, collecting rent, and managing accounting needs easier for property managers.
What is tenant management software?
Definition: Property management (PM) software (or tenant management software as it’s sometimes called) typically comes with an accompanying tenant portal. Tenants can use this tenant portal to pay their rent. Renters can also pay any other fees or bills you charge. In addition, tenants can submit maintenance requests and much more.
What does property management software do?
Property management software is an application designed to organize and manage rental properties. It typically includes tools to automate financial and administrative tasks in the back office, including processing maintenance requests, document storage, tenant verification, and rent payment processing.
What is Apartment software?
Apartment management software are tools that make routine tasks like tracking and storing tenant information, collecting rent, and managing accounting needs easier for property managers.
What is rental software? Landlord software helps property owners and managers monitor all parts of a rental property’s performance including: Marketing vacant rental properties to reach as many qualified prospects as possible. Screen tenants and conduct comprehensive background checks. Collect rental payments online.
What is tenant management software?
Definition: Property management (PM) software (or tenant management software as it’s sometimes called) typically comes with an accompanying tenant portal. Tenants can use this tenant portal to pay their rent. Renters can also pay any other fees or bills you charge. In addition, tenants can submit maintenance requests and much more.
What do property management softwares do?
Rental property management software helps landlords manage everything from marketing, leasing, payment, and maintenance to accounting and reporting, no matter the size of their portfolio. Some platforms work primarily with small portfolios of single family homes, while others are better suited to large mixed commercial portfolios.
What is tenant management system?
A tenant management system is the solution you need for effective document management. Many software solutions provide effective and secure document storage for each tenant and property. You can securely access digital copies of these documents at any time, print them, make copies, and more.
What software do apartments use?
Best rental property management software of 2023
- Best overall: Buildium.
- Best Free Option: TurboTenant.
- Best for Advanced Features: AppFolio.
- Best for Single Family Homes: Propertyware.
- Best for few properties: SimplifyEm.
- Best for commercial real estate: MRI software.
- Best Cloud-Based Software: Yardi Breeze.
What is Yardi breeze?
Yardi Breeze is property management software built for you. Our refreshingly simple platform puts you in charge of marketing and managing your entire portfolio, with support for residential, commercial, self-storage, affordable, HOA/condominium and prefab properties.
What is a property management software?
Property management software is an application designed to organize and manage rental properties. It typically includes tools to automate financial and administrative tasks in the back office, including processing maintenance requests, document storage, tenant verification, and rent payment processing.
What does property management software do?
Property management software is an application designed to organize and manage rental properties. It typically includes tools to automate financial and administrative tasks in the back office, including processing maintenance requests, document storage, tenant verification, and rent payment processing.
What do property management software do?
Put simply, property management software is an application designed to help property managers and landlords organize their rental properties, tenants, owners, finances, and accounts.
What is a property management system?
Property management systems are commonly referred to as PMS. A faster one. The definition of property management systems would be “systems that facilitate the day-to-day operations of any lodging business, such as: B. Reservations, reception, housekeeping, maintenance, billing and yield data analysis.
What lawsuit was filed against Google?
In 2020, the Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing search engines and search advertising, which are separate markets from the digital advertising technology markets addressed in today’s lawsuit. The Google search lawsuit is scheduled to be heard in September 2023.
Has anyone won a lawsuit against Google? In 2016, a Texas jury awarded Bedrock Computer Technologies $5 million in a patent lawsuit against Google. The patent allegedly covered the use of hash tables with garbage collection and separate chaining in the Red Hat Linux kernel. Google and Bedrock later settled the case and the verdict was overturned by the court.
How many times has Google been sued for patent infringement?
Big Tech’s losses this week are part of a recent spike in patent litigation. During the pandemic, patent lawsuits surged for the first time since 2015, according to Lex Machina’s 2021 Patent Litigation Report. Google faced the highest number of patent lawsuits in the country, defending a total of 48 cases.
Is Google suing Sonos over patent infringement once again?
Google’s new lawsuits are an intimidation tactic aimed at avenging Sonos for speaking out against Google’s monopolistic practices of paying Sonos a reasonable royalty for the 200 or so patents it currently infringes, plus a smaller one Wearing down competitors whose innovations it has withheld.
Did Google get sued for patent infringement?
Google Wins Transfer of Patent Lawsuit Despite 5th Cir. jurisprudence.
What did the DOJ file a lawsuit against Google for?
The Department of Justice, along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia, has filed a civil antitrust complaint against Google for monopolizing several digital advertising technology products in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act .
Is Google in trouble with the government?
The Justice Department and states including California, New York, Colorado, and Virginia filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search and advertising giant had eroded the online advertising market through years of proprietary trading, anti-competitive acquisitions, and forcing users to use . …
What is doj suing Google for?
In 2020, the Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google for monopolizing search engines and search advertising, which are separate markets from the digital advertising technology markets addressed in today’s lawsuit.
What company is suing Google?
The Justice Department and eight states sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the company of unfair competition through its dominance of the online advertising market and calling for it to be broken up. The move marks the Biden administration’s first blockbuster antitrust case against a big tech company.
Is it suit or sue?
N. A common term for a claim by a person or entity against another person or entity to be decided in court, sometimes referred to simply as a “claim”. The legal claims within a lawsuit are referred to as “causes of action.”
What is the meaning of sue you?
/suË/ C2. to take legal action against a person or entity, specifically to ask for money for harm they have caused you: He was so angry at the allegations in the letter that he threatened to sue.