Tenants organize against Brookfield’s unfair billing and mistreatment of tenants

Brookfield Properties is owned by Brookfield Corporation, a private equity firm headquartered in Canada. As of 2025, Brookfield Properties owns over 41,000 unitsof multifamily housing units across four countries with over 9,000 units in the “development pipeline.”  

In 2018, Brookfield Properties purchased Foundry Lofts, a 172-unit luxury apartment building located in Washington D.C. after Brookfield acquired Forest City Realty Trustin 2018. Since then, tenants have complained of ongoing issues with the landlord. These issues came to a head on April 18th when a staff member for Conservice, a third-party utility provider that Brookfield utilizes for billing, accidentally left a Foundry Lofts tenant copied on an email about utility charges. In the email exchange, the billing manager admits to knowingly over-charging tenants stating “the issue on our end is we are overbilling the tenants that are billable.” According to the Conservice staff member, this discrepancy was due to certain units being marked “occupied,” by Brookfield that were actually vacant.  

The Foundry Lofts property is located in the Navy Yard district of Washington DC, which is home to many entertainment options and traditionally thought of as an upscale area of the city. Brookfield owns other properties in the Navy Yard area including the Estate, Guild, Twelve12, and Vela properties.  The Foundry Lofts property was constructed using $47.7 million from multifamily housing revenue bonds from the DC Housing Finance Agency, and $5.3 million in low-income tax credits from the Department of Housing and Community Development. Because of this funding, Brookfield is required to rent 20% of the property’s apartments  (34 units) as affordable housing, according to HUD’s LIHTC database. 

After talking to each other about their issues with Brookfield, residents in Brookfield’s Navy Yards properties worked together to form a tenant union named Brookfield DC Tenants. The tenant union organizes against Brookfield’s “poor management” and to “ensure fair treatment and reasonable costs for all residents.”  According to the union,  their complaints against Brookfield include allegations of “reduced service,”  “price hikes,” “excessive utility fees,” and “common  area charges.” Stating that they have over 140 tenant members, Brookfield DC Tenants’ website features a page tosubmit complaints against Brookfield, picturesof some of the tenant issues, and a list of the union’s collective agreements.

Brookfield DC Tenants also accuse the landlord of over-billing and charging junk fees, which the Federal Trade Commission defines as “ bait-and-switch pricing that hides the total price by omitting mandatory fees and charges from advertised prices.” Housing junk fees have been the subject of proposed legislation demanding more transparency and an end to excessive billing. Brookfield now charges tenants for usage of the common areas utilities, a cost that is usually covered by the landlord. Some Brookfield tenants claim that they are being forced to pay over $200 in common area fees a month, which they find frustrating and “junk”-like since these common areas are no longer staffed by people. 

According to Brookfield DC Tenants, Brookfield also removed all front desk concierge staff and began offering Butterfly MX, a video intercom system, as an alternative. Brookfield also owns Metergy which is the one of the utility companies that tenants are billed by, leading to accusations of a conflict of interest in terms of utility prices.

In addition to organizing through Brookfield DC Tenants, tenants are attempting to address Brookfield’s billing system in other ways. In December of 2024, a tenant in Brookfield’s Guild property named Norman Propst filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Brookfield alleging that Brookfield’s billing system violated the DC Consumer Protection Procedures Act. The lawsuit is currently pending. (Case No. 2024-CAB-007753) 

When the DC-based newspaper Washington City Paper tried to learn more about Brookfield’s fee transparency they stated that the landlord’s explanation “provides little clarity to prospective tenants on how utility fees are proportioned.” On a Foundry Lofts Fee Schedule document created by Brookfield from February 2025, fees such as stormwater, trash collection, gas, and common area electric fees are simply designated “allocated,” with no exact figure or a formula that shows how these fees are calculated. The paper also claims that there were “inconsistencies in charges…even among market-rate units,” with some tenants paying “variable fees for trash,” and others paying “a fixed $10 per month.”

Following the email exchange which exposed the over-billing, Brookfield staff confirmed that some tenants were overbilled for almost two years and stated that those impacted by the overbilling would receive credits. Noelle Porter, the Director of Government Affairs for the National Housing Law Project, and also a Foundry Lofts resident and organizer for Brookfield DC tenants stated that the exchange “is direct evidence that private equity puts property over people.” She continued to state that “it’s clear that Brookfield is unconcerned with the stability of its tenants’ housing.”

There are currently over 40 public pension funds that are invested in Brookfield. With Brookfield DC Tenants continuing to receive press opportunities that could mean more negative articles about the landlord’s mistreatment of tenants. This negative press about Brookfield’s possible mistreatment of tenants (including low-income tenants), also poses a financial risk to institutional investors during an already heightened political climate. Investors in Brookfield should ask the landlord what changes they will make to their Navy Yard properties.