Barkan Management Lawsuit: $235K Settlement and Mold Verdict

Barkan Management Company has been named in two notable lawsuits in recent years: a Washington, D.C. housing voucher discrimination case that ended in a $235,000 consent order in December 2023, and a Maryland mold and negligence case that produced a $90,000 jury verdict against the company, affirmed on appeal in 2022. The Barkan Management lawsuit that drew the most public attention was the D.C. matter, brought by the District’s Attorney General and the Equal Rights Center over the refusal of Section 8 vouchers at an apartment building in Cleveland Park.

The D.C. Housing Voucher Discrimination Case

The case, Equal Rights Center v. Adams Investment Group, LLC, et al. (Case No. 2022 CA 001582 R(RP)), was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in April 2022. It accused the owners, managers, and a technology vendor of Adams View Apartments at 3201 Wisconsin Avenue NW of refusing to rent to tenants who use Housing Choice Vouchers, in violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act.¹

The defendants were Adams Investment Group LLC and Adams-Cathedral LLC (the owners, beneficially owned by Martin Segal and John Holmes), Broadhouse Management Group LLC, Barkan Management Company, and Entrata, Inc., a property technology firm that ran a third-party leasing call center for the building.²

The evidence came from civil rights testing. In December 2020, a D.C. Housing Authority employee reported to the Equal Rights Center that she and a client had been told vouchers were not accepted at Adams View. On February 12, 2021, the ERC sent a fair housing tester to the property. An Adams View representative told the tester, “It looks like at this property section 8 is not accepted,” and confirmed “correct” when asked again.³ Under the D.C. Human Rights Act, refusing to rent because a prospective tenant uses a voucher is unlawful source-of-income discrimination, and landlords, property managers, and their agents can all be held liable.⁴ The complaint also alleged the blanket refusal had a racially disparate impact, because a disproportionate share of D.C. voucher holders are Black.

How Barkan Came to Be Named

The tests occurred before Barkan managed the building. Broadhouse Management Group ran Adams View at the time. In August 2021, Broadhouse sold its management agreements to Barkan, and Barkan took over operations on September 1, 2021, acquiring Broadhouse’s equipment, records, and employees. In court filings, the company even identified itself as “Barkan Management Company Inc. fka Broadhouse Mgmt.”⁵ Barkan stopped managing the property in late September 2022.⁶

The consent order explicitly acknowledged that Barkan was not the property manager during the testing incidents. Barkan was named as Broadhouse’s successor-in-interest, having purchased its contracts, hired its staff, and taken over its vendor relationships, including the Entrata call center agreement.⁵

Terms of the $235,000 Settlement

Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb and the Equal Rights Center announced the court-approved consent order on December 12, 2023. All defendants denied the allegations and did not admit fault, wrongdoing, or liability.⁶ The agreement runs for three years and requires the following:

A collective payment of $235,000, with $220,000 to the Equal Rights Center for damages, attorney’s fees, and future compliance testing and training, and $15,000 to the District in civil penalties.⁶
Written non-discrimination policies barring refusal of voucher applicants and restricting the use of minimum-income, credit-score, and lack-of-credit-score requirements in ways that would screen them out.⁶
Annual fair housing training for leasing and management staff, provided by the ERC.⁷
Twenty undercover compliance tests by the ERC over the three-year term, split evenly between Barkan-managed properties and Entrata’s call center services.⁶
A national requirement that Entrata review clients in every jurisdiction that prohibits source-of-income discrimination and hard-code its software so client property files in those jurisdictions reflect that vouchers are accepted, plus an audit of existing policy documents.¹
Fair housing notices posted in corporate offices, off-site call centers, and on relevant websites stating that vouchers are not refused.⁶

Each defendant must also file annual sworn statements with the D.C. Attorney General’s office reporting any complaints alleging violations of the D.C. Human Rights Act.⁶

The Maryland Mold and Negligence Verdict

In a separate matter, Barkan Management, LLC was a defendant in Park Sutton Condominium, Inc. and Barkan Management, LLC v. Dora C. Johns (Case No. 603, Sept. Term 2021). Johns, a condominium unit owner, sued the Park Sutton association and its management company after chronic water penetration through the building’s exterior walls caused a mold infestation that made her unit uninhabitable.⁸

After Johns discovered mold on a bedroom wall in September 2018, repeated remediation attempts failed. Independent inspectors confirmed elevated mold levels throughout the unit, and she was told asbestos had been released. She vacated and spent roughly two years staying with a neighbor, her son, an employer, and briefly in a hotel.⁸

In June 2021, a Montgomery County Circuit Court jury awarded Johns $185,000 total: $75,000 against Park Sutton for breach of contract, $20,000 against Park Sutton for negligence, and $90,000 against Barkan Management for negligence. The association and Barkan appealed, arguing that a liability limitation clause in the association’s bylaws shielded them. On February 23, 2022, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed the verdict, finding the limitation clause ambiguous and holding that it did not clearly waive negligence claims.⁸

About Barkan Management

Barkan Management Company is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts, with regional offices in Hartford, Providence, Cape Cod, and Washington, D.C. The management arm was established in 1981 within The Barkan Companies, a family-run business founded by Mel A. Barkan in 1964.⁹ According to the company’s disclosures, it manages 174 properties totaling more than 27,000 units across eight states and employs over 700 people.¹⁰

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DC Office of the Attorney General. Attorney General Schwalb Announces Resolution
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Equal Rights Center. ERC v. Adams Investment Group Consent Order
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DCist. ERC v. Adams View Complaint as Filed
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DC Office of Human Rights. OHR Guidance 16-01 Source of Income
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Equal Rights Center. Third Amended Complaint
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DC Office of the Attorney General. Full Executed Consent Order
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Equal Rights Center. Press Release: Two Settlements
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Maryland Courts. Park Sutton Condominium v. Johns, No. 603 Sept. Term 2021
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Barkan Management. About Barkan Management
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Barkan Management. Barkan Property Management Portfolio Managers Achieve PCAM Designation