The former owners of a Southeast D.C. high-rise apartment complex have been ordered to pay $41 million in a lawsuit that claimed the building was unsafe.
That’s the largest judgment ever made against a D.C. property owner, and one of the largest housing conditions judgments against a landlord in U.S. history, according to D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s office.
The lawsuit centers on the apartment complex once called Marbury Plaza. According to court records, the former owners were MP PPH LLC and Dr. Anthony Pilavas.
The apartment complex has since been renamed Langston Views.
Schwalb’s office said the former owners neglected the “safety and habitability of the complex, defying a court order to fix dangerous conditions there,” and putting more than 2,500 tenants “at risk by forcing them to live with chronic water leaks, widespread mold, and a lack of air conditioning, heat, and hot water.”
Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Tomora Redman, who lived at the apartment complex for 28 years, said the building was overwhelmed by mold.
“At one point in time, there was over 98% of the building, when it was tested of all the common areas, was covered with mold,” she said.
Redman also raised safety concerns: “Residents were getting accosted in the parking lot, and we were having a homeless issue because none of the doors were being secured around the property.”
Under the settlement, tenants will receive $29.8 million in restitution. The defendants must return 75% of the rent paid by tenants from 2017 to 2024. Another $11.1 million in civil penalties and attorneys’ fees will go to the District.
Schwalb’s office said $1.1 million has already been collected through a separate settlement agreement with the building’s former property manager, Vantage Management. Those funds will be distributed to affected tenants.
“This is a significant and historic victory for thousands of Marbury Plaza tenants, who were subjected to dangerous and unlawful living conditions for years,” Schwalb said.
Redman said she and her neighbors never wanted to leave the complex, which she described as having one of the best views in D.C.
“It’s been a long, long, long, long, long, long battle,” she said.
Ward 8 Council member Trayon White, who represents the area, said the $41 million judgment “shows what happens when tenants stand up and the District stands with them.”
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