The Capitol Forum: Invitation Homes: Tenants Say Rental Homes Poorly Maintained, Violate Habitability Standards and Local Housing Codes, Company Deaf to Concerns

Tenants who lease houses from Invitation Homes, a leader in the single-family rental industry, are deceptively put into dwellings with maintenance issues, code violations and life-threatening safety risks, according to interviews with twenty current and former tenants and complaints filed with attorneys general in two states. The company additionally has failed to make requested repairs and signaled to residents that they may be held liable for fix-up costs when they move out, the tenants said.

Calls from tenants to local code enforcement agencies have led to notices of code violations and fines issued to the company, and in one case, a servicemember tenant turned to the military legal office to help negotiate an early lease termination after a California city ejected Invitation Homes from its “self-certification program.”

Twenty Invitation Homes tenants with complaints against the company including two military families were interviewed for this article. Other tenant complaints submitted to the attorneys general of Florida and North Carolina, to the Better Business Bureau, and on social media platforms detail similar conduct by the company.

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