Judge rules in favor of State College property management company facing state AG lawsuit
A State College property management company was found not to be deceptive with practices involving its security deposits and largely did not violate a state consumer protection law, a Centre County judge recently ruled.
Associated Realty Property Management was accused by the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General of engaging in “unfair methods of competition and unfair and deceptive acts or practices” under the protection law, such as not providing full notice of damages that impacted security deposits. But Judge Katherine Oliver ruled almost entirely in favor of ARPM, writing the state attorney general’s office lacked evidence with several of its accusations.
The state attorney general’s office hoped to have ARPM make full restitution to all previous tenants who incurred losses, repay the office for its investigation and pay civil penalties of $1,000 for each violation and $3,000 for each violation involving someone older than 60.
Instead, Judge Oliver asked ARPM to pay only $541.75 to reimburse litigation of a partial verdict. As part of the lawsuit’s fourth count — the only one that partially went against ARPM — the company was told it could no longer seemingly require tenants to choose from an approved list of carpet-cleaning vendors upon move-out. She rejected the state attorney general office’s request to impose civil penalties, however.
She ruled that ARPM not outright listing all damages that impacted security deposits — only upon request — did not reflect a deceptive practice. She found that past administrative fees between 10% and 15% of security deposits were not arbitrary when it came to repairs/cleaning and were outlined in lease agreements. And she ruled that ARPM was not misleading when it came to describing “fines” levied by ARPM and not municipalities, such as when smoke alarms were tampered with.
A non-jury trial took place in March of this year, nearly three years after the lawsuit was filed, with ARPM and the attorney general’s office filing additional submissions afterward. The judge issued her written verdict Nov. 28.
The lawsuit against ARPM was part of at least two other similar actions taken by the state attorney general’s office against State College-based property management companies. Continental Real Estate management already agreed to pay $40,000 in 2019 after the office reviewed its security deposit practices.
The litigation was brought by Governor-elect Josh Shapiro, who has served as state attorney general since 2017. He told Onward State in January 2020 that his office received more student housing/landlord complaints from State College than anywhere else in the state.
