Large landlords aggressively moved against renters in the pandemic, a report says.

A Home subcommittee that investigated eviction practices by massive landlords in the course of the pandemic issued a scathing report that mentioned 4 companies had engaged in “abusive” techniques to try to push renters out of their properties regardless of a federal moratorium.

The report, launched Thursday, got here after a yearlong investigation and a listening to by the committee that seemed into the enterprise practices of so-called company landlords that led to eviction filings towards tens of hundreds of renters in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The committee targeted primarily on the actions of 4 companies, together with single-family dwelling rental agency Invitation Houses and the weekly rental agency Siegel Group. Its report mentioned the 4 accounted for the submitting of practically 15,000 eviction circumstances from March 2020 to July 2021. It’s unclear what number of renters had been really compelled out of their properties.

The Eviction Lab at Princeton College mentioned that within the markets it tracks, there have been 495,216 eviction actions filed by all landlords in the course of the interval the subcommittee examined.

“Whereas the abusive eviction practices documented on this report could be condemnable below any circumstances, they’re unconscionable throughout a once-in-a-century financial and public well being disaster,” mentioned Consultant James E. Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who headed the subcommittee, in a press release.

The report discovered that Invitation Houses had “misleadingly downplayed” the impact of its pandemic eviction practices to Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage finance agency that offered $1 billion in financing to Invitation Houses in 2017. Invitation Houses is without doubt one of the nation’s largest single-family rental companies, working greater than 83,000 properties.

Siegel Group, which operates below the title Siegel Suites, was singled out as “uniquely egregious.” The report mentioned the agency, which operates about 12,000 flats in eight states, “engaged in misleading and doubtlessly illegal practices to stop tenants from understanding their safety from eviction” below the moratorium. The committee additionally discovered that Siegel used harassment techniques to push tenants out with out submitting an eviction motion.

Mr. Clyburn wrote federal businesses about Invitation Houses and Siegel Group, asking them to overview the businesses’ actions.

A consultant for Invitation Houses mentioned the committee discovered nothing illegal in regards to the firm’s actions.

“In a time when the main target must be on including much-needed provide to the nation’s housing market, it’s disappointing that the committee selected as an alternative to pursue a faultfinding mission,” mentioned Kristi DesJarlais, a spokeswoman.

A consultant for Siegel didn’t instantly return requests for remark.

The committee additionally seemed into the eviction practices of Pretium Companions, one other massive single-family rental dwelling operator, and Ventron Administration, which operates 8,000 flats in 26 states. Pretium mentioned in a press release that it complied with the federal moratorium and no resident lined by it “has ever been evicted from our properties for nonpayment of lease.”

Ventron couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.

Eviction moratoriums had been broadly credited with holding thousands and thousands of individuals from dropping their properties in the course of the pandemic. However they usually didn’t forestall landlords for initiating eviction actions in the course of the pandemic, which gave some landlords the flexibility to rapidly transfer to power out tenants as soon as the federal moratorium resulted in fall 2021.

The filings created one other drawback for renters as a result of they usually left a everlasting mark on a court docket docket that could possibly be used towards them sooner or later. Generally known as the “Scarlet E,” the mere submitting of an eviction motion towards an individual can typically be utilized by landlords as a motive for refusing to lease to them, even when the motion was dismissed.

Some states have sought to deal with that drawback by sealing eviction actions filed in the course of the pandemic.