The idea of pursuing a lawsuit is daunting and intimidating. Who has the time (or the money) to subject themselves to something so stressful over a few hundred bucks? I get it. You know who else gets it? MiddleTown Property Group. It’s only $300 to you and, while you know you don’t actually owe it, it’s worth the $300 to just get rid of them. Their business model only works because of that reality.
Now do some math… $300 per unit x 1000 units = $300,000
MiddleTown Property Group is generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue every year by taking advantage of people who don’t know their rights and don’t know they’re paying move-out charges MiddleTown Property Group isn’t legally permitted to charge. Even if they did know that, finding a lawyer can feel overwhelming and suing someone is expensive. You could easily end up spending more to hire an attorney than you’d end up recovering, even if you win your lawsuit.
It’s so much easier to just let it go when they don’t refund your deposit or pay them whatever arbitrary move-out charges they claim you owe than to fight them & continue to be abused, harassed, and bullied… right?!? I get it. But when is enough enough? When will someone stand up and put a stop to this once & for all? Individual lawsuits will never end the MiddleTown Property Group nightmare. Only a sweeping class action lawsuit can do that.
That’s why I’m going full Erin Brockovich, investing my time & using my skills to organize a class action lawsuit.
I don’t have kids, but most of my friends do and most of their kids are in college or soon will be. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t pretend to be, but I cannot in good conscience allow college students to continue to be preyed on without trying to do something to stop it. College students rarely, if ever, know their rights. Even when they do, they don’t have the time or the inclination to hold predators accountable for violating them. MiddleTown Property Group knows that.
I have the time and skill set to organize and find an attorney to represent MiddleTown’s victims in a sweeping class action lawsuit. The Brothers Wilson and the rest of the avarice-driven executives at MiddleTown Property Group know 99.9% of people will never pursue individual legal action. The opportunity cost is too high and the ROI is too low. It’s time to band together and prove them wrong; taking from them the only thing they truly care about: money.
A class action lawsuit is different…
Being a member of the represented class in a class action lawsuit won’t cost you a dime. You don’t have to retain your own attorney or argue your individual case in court. All you have to do is opt in. And you can opt in to a future class action lawsuit simply by submitting your horror story.
What Warrants Legal Action?
You may not even know that what MiddleTown Property Group has done qualifies as a violation of the covenant of quiet enjoyment or the warranty of habitability. So, what are the sorts of things a tenant can sue a landlord over? O’Flaherty Law has published 12 Issues You Can Sue Your Landlord For in Indiana.
We’ll highlight a few of the most commonly reported violations by MiddleTown Property Group below…
Wrongful/Retaliatory Eviction
Among the issues that would warrant legal action are unwarranted attempts at eviction, unlawful eviction, and retaliatory eviction. A landlord must have grounds to evict you and there are very specific steps & procedures they must follow in order to legally evict you. If you were wrongfully evicted and that resulted in monetary damages or measurable harm (a negative impact to your credit score, for example), you may be eligible to pursue your own lawsuit or participate in a class action and receive a share of any damages awarded.
O’Flaherty Law states the following:
Habitability Issues
While there isn’t exactly a legally-specified list of issues that fall under the umbrella of an implied warranty of habitability in Indiana, there are some very specific things that landlords are obligated to provide. MiddleTown Property Group likes to stick “as-is” in their leases, but that does not supersede the law or negate their legal obligations as a property owner/manager.
O’Flaherty Law states the following:
Covenant of Quiet Enjoyment Issues
One of the most common allegations against MiddleTown Property Group is that they regularly enter units without notice or consent. Allegations run the gamut of entering without knocking at all, walking in on tenants while they’re sleeping, even entering a unit without permission when only minors were present.
Another common complaint is excessive inspections. MiddleTown Property Group has an established pattern of scheduling inspections month after month after month, demanding people secure their pets, then never showing up to complete an inspection, only to text again days or weeks later about another inspection.
O’Flaherty Law states the following:
Fraudulent Move-Out Charges
The single most common complaint about MiddleTown Property Group is their use of deceptive business practices, like replacing refundable security deposits with non-refundable “move-in fees” and “redecoration fees” in leases and increasing charged utility fees without reason or warning mid-lease.
While the Indiana Attorney General has already fined MiddleTown Property Group tens of thousands of dollars and ordered them to modify their deceptive business practices, they continue to run afoul of the law for sport & profit by invoicing tenants for move-out charges that they are not legally permitted to charge.
O’Flaherty Law states the following (click images to expand):
If you’ve been taken advantage of by MiddleTown Property Group, you deserve justice and you have a right to pursue it. The criminal court system cannot stop MiddleTown Property Group. Until legislators take action and pass new laws that restore tenants’ rights protections in Indiana, civil court is a tenant’s only venue where justice can be sought and restitution awarded.
Class Action or Individual Lawsuit?
MiddleTown Property Group continues to take advantage of people by preying on ignorance and apathy. Decades of feckless deregulation have rendered the authorities essentially powerless, from a criminal standpoint. All they can really do is fine landlords for wrongdoing, at which point duplicitous people will simply increase rents, fees, etc. to offset those fines. Fines are not a sufficient deterrent and will never compel people like the Brothers Wilson to modify their behavior. Civil lawsuits, on the other hand, are another matter entirely.
You could hire your own lawyer and pursue your own individual lawsuit. You’d have to pay the attorney and there’s a chance you could lose the lawsuit, at which point you’ve spent money for an attorney, invested hours of your life you’ll never get back, and you still walk away with nothing… or worse, after paying the attorney, you’re worse off financially than you were before.
Or…
You could opt in to be a member of class action lawsuit instead. Justia provides the following information about class action lawsuits:
Join The Fight
The fact of the matter is: a sweeping class action lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of plaintiffs that forces MiddleTown Property Group to either declare bankruptcy or liquidate the majority of its real estate portfolio to satisfy a huge judgement is the only thing that will stop them. Unless we band together and take action, they will continue preying on thousands of innocent, vulnerable college students year after year with impunity.
Submit your horror story and opt in to a future class action lawsuit. Not only will doing so ensure you’re eligible for a share of any damages that may result from a successful class action lawsuit, you do your part to help stop MiddleTown Property Group from continuing to prey on unsuspecting Hoosiers.
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