BALTIMORE — A Baltimore judge has ordered Westminster Management, the property management arm of Kushner Companies, to pay more than $4.17 million to thousands of Maryland tenants after finding the company illegally charged excessive late-payment and court-related fees for years.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, Baltimore City Circuit Judge Paul J. Cucuzzella granted partial summary judgment in favor of a class of more than 17,000 current and former tenants, finding there was “no genuine dispute of material fact” that Westminster violated Maryland law and breached its leases by charging unlawful fees between September 2014 and August 2021.

Westminster Management is an apartment company co-owned by Jared Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

“Westminster strongly disagrees with the Court’s ruling and believes it wrongfully denied Westminster its right to dispute and highlight the deficiencies in the plaintiffs’ arguments,” Michael E. Blumenfeld, a Baltimore-based attorney for Westminster Management, said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun. “Westminster intends to vigorously pursue all available avenues to contest this decision.”

The judge also denied Westminster’s effort to decertify the class action, permanently barred the company from attempting to collect any unpaid disputed fees that remain on tenants’ accounts and ruled that prejudgment interest at Maryland’s legal rate of 6% should be added. The amount of interest, expected to exceed $2 million, along with a small portion of disputed damages tied to incomplete records from one apartment complex, will be determined at trial.

The ruling marks the latest chapter in a nearly nine-year legal battle that already produced a landmark 2024 decision by the Maryland Supreme Court. In that opinion, the state’s highest court held that Maryland law prohibits landlords from charging additional late-payment fees beyond the statutory cap of 5% of unpaid rent.

The lawsuit alleged Westminster charged tenants a $10 “agent fee” and a $20 to $30 “summons fee” in addition to the maximum allowable late fee. The company also charged tenants a $12 “agent fee” and inflated writ fees after filing failure-to-pay-rent cases in court.

Cucuzzella wrote that Westminster charged the disputed fees to thousands of tenants at 17 Maryland apartment communities it managed before exiting the state’s property management business in August 2021.

The court entered judgment for $4,172,252.24 in damages that were not disputed. Questions involving approximately $143,000 in additional damages and the final calculation of prejudgment interest will be resolved in future proceedings.

“This decision was a monumental step in a nine-year battle toward resolving this case for thousands of tenants who are entitled to decent housing without being charged unlawful fees,” lead plaintiff Tenae Smith said in a statement released by her attorneys. “No one should have to face the choice that I did, between paying illegal fees and feeding my kids.”

Andrew Freeman, a partner with Brown, Goldstein & Levy who represents the tenants, said the court rejected Westminster’s arguments over how damages should be calculated.

“After the Supreme Court of Maryland found that Westminster Management’s late-fee practices were illegal, the trial court found the damages were simple math, adding up the illegal fees paid by tenants,” Freeman said in a statement. “While there are several more steps before money can be distributed, we look forward to the day when current and former Westminster tenants finally receive the damages they are owed.”

Matt Hill, an attorney with the Public Justice Center who also represents the tenants, said the ruling should serve as a warning to landlords that charge illegal fees.

According to the lawsuit, Westminster improperly designated the disputed charges as rent and applied tenant payments to those fees before rent, a practice the Maryland Supreme Court previously concluded violated state law.

The plaintiffs now must submit a plan explaining how the judgment should be distributed among class members and how attorneys’ fees should be awarded. The court will later consider a request for attorneys’ fees, and the parties have until July 24 to schedule further proceedings on the remaining damages issues.

An attorney for Westminster Management could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

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