Four Star Realty office on The University Hill on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (Greta Kerkhoff/ CU Independent)
Boulder-based property management company Four Star Realty, which manages properties that University of Colorado Boulder students often rent, reached a one million dollar settlement with the Colorado Department of Law on Jan. 9.
The lawsuit accused Four Star of illegally billing tenants for apartment services such as repairs and work not specified in leases, although the rental company denies any wrongdoing. According to the company’s LinkedIn, student rentals are one of their specialties.
The state of Colorado plans to return $980,000 of the settlement to renters affected by the company. The Department of Law plans to contact those who left Four Star properties between Jan. 2020 and Dec. 1, 2023.
Celia Schwarz, a CU Boulder graduate, rented with Four Star from fall 2021 to summer 2022.
“Going into it, everyone knows their reputation: they’re bad… [We thought] ‘Okay, how bad can it be?’ We’re not going to throw parties. We’re not going to punch holes in the walls,” Schwarz said.
While Schwarz described having some issues concerning the misallocation of fees relating to common spaces shared by multiple rental units, her main issue was the process of getting her security deposit back.
When she accidentally sent the deposit to the wrong address, Schwarz alleges that Four Star’s property management never alerted her that it had been sent back.
“I tried calling and emailing them. No response,” she said. “They only responded when I threatened legal action.”
According to Schwarz, she eventually got a portion of her deposit back. However, property management had charged her a move-out fee, a rekeying fee and a painting fee among others. When she disputed, some of the fees were dropped without question, including the painting fee.
The settlement now prohibits Four Star from withholding rekeying fees, like the one they charged Schwarz, from security deposits. The company can only charge tenants for rekeying if they choose to have Four Star rekey locks, according to the attorney general.
The issues and ensuing lawsuit with Four Star have prompted many CU students to push for changes in legislation that better protect renters, as well as to warn their peers to rent with caution.
“I feel like laws don’t really protect renters,” Schwarz said. “Have someone who’s knowledgeable about leases or rental laws look over the lease.”
Rohan Baishya, another CU Boulder graduate, rented with Four Star from fall 2021 to spring 2022.
When Baishya and his roommates reported a clogged toilet, property management sent a plumber to fix the issue, however, Baishya says it only worsened the situation.
“Water kept spilling out of the toilet and it was disgusting. It covered all the tile floors,” Baishya said.
Eventually, the sewage water made its way into two of the bedrooms, ruining the carpets and items of their personal furniture.
“They sent a cleanup team,” he said. “They had another round of people come in and re-carpet the whole place.”
Baishya claimed that the renters received no compensation for the personal items that were destroyed, and were left with no choice but to handle the loss themselves. However, Baishya said he was unsure if, according to his lease, the personal items fell under his or Four Star’s responsibility. He urged other renters to exercise more caution before signing leases to protect themselves from acquiring charges.
“Look at your lease,” Baishya said. “Make sure that nowhere in there does it say you have to pay for things that aren’t your fault. Or [make sure] that the property owner will take care of damages that come naturally to a property like vents, pipes. Those are things that need to be taken care of.”
CU Boulder junior Madilynn Bailey rented at The Lodge apartments, a complex managed by Four Star, from August 2022 to July 2023.
For Bailey, the lack of security and organization of the apartment’s mailroom caused the majority of her issues.
“You would walk in and it [packages] would just be everywhere, opened and everything,” said Bailey. “I honestly lost count of how many packages I had stolen.”
In January 2023, after returning to her apartment following winter break, Bailey found that her mailbox door had been pried off the hinges. She filed a police report, put a month-long hold on her mail and alerted the property management to the incident.
“I think they should just have cameras in there,” said Bailey. “After a month they still had not done anything, I had not heard a single thing,” she said.
At the end of her mail’s hold, Bailey claims that her mailbox was still missing the door. Letters started to be sent again.
“I went down [to the mailroom] one day and I saw all of my mail on top of the locker. It was each individual piece opened,” she said. “My tax documents were gone, I had pay stubs gone and all of these have information on them. I had credit card statements. Everything was gone and it was taken.”
Bailey said she then filed another police report and tried to break her lease due to safety concerns over her personal information.
On March 29, over two months after first reporting that her door had been stolen, Bailey was assigned access to a new mailbox.
“[It] existed the whole time, and they could have just given me a new one,” she said.
Bailey also claims that she never received her security deposit back, though she was told that she would.
Schwarz, Bailey and Baishya did not pursue legal action against Four Star.
Following the settlement, Four Star released a statement denying the allegations.
“Four Star strongly denies many of the factual allegations made by the State, including that it engaged in a course of conduct to improperly withhold security deposits… In addition to fact-specific disputes about certain properties, Four Star Realty also disputed the State’s interpretation of legal requirements for the industry,” the company said. “Nonetheless, rather than spend years of expensive litigation defending itself, Four Star Realty decided to put this matter behind it and instead focus on its business, including developing industry-leading processes and controls.”
Schwarz hopes that following the lawsuit and settlement, more attention will be brought to the issues concerning student rental agreements.
“I think that students have been overlooked by the school because it’s an “off-campus issue,” Schwarz said.
On Sept. 25, 2023, the university published an article intended to help student renters better understand their rights as tenants. Student Legal Services has also published an article detailing things students should know before signing a lease.
Schwarz also feels that protections for student renters should come from multiple places, such as rental companies, the university and students themselves.
“I don’t believe that the issue can be fixed by landlords alone as it’s unlikely that every rental company in Boulder is going to wake up one day and decide to stop taking advantage of college students,” Schwarz said.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Greta Kerkhoff at Greta.Kerkhoff@colorado.edu.
