Progress Residential Lawsuits: Minnesota Settlement and Tenant Claims

Progress Residential, the largest single-family rental company in the United States, has been the target of several major legal actions: a Minnesota attorney general lawsuit that ended in a $2.2 million settlement in March 2024, a federal fair housing class action in Indiana over criminal-history screening that was voluntarily dismissed in July 2025, and a 2022 congressional investigation into more than 6,000 eviction filings during the COVID-19 pandemic. The company, owned by private equity firm Pretium Partners, manages roughly 90,000 rental homes in 30 U.S. markets and has also drawn thousands of tenant complaints over fees, maintenance, and eviction tactics that sit behind these formal cases.¹

The Minnesota Attorney General Case

The most significant lawsuit against Progress Residential began in Minnesota in February 2022, when Attorney General Keith Ellison sued a group of corporate entities operating more than 600 single-family rentals in the state under the name HavenBrook Homes. The case, State of Minnesota v. HavenBrook Homes, LLC, et al. (Case No. 62-CV-22-780), was filed in Ramsey County District Court. Progress Residential Management Services was added as a defendant in August 2022 after Pretium Partners acquired HavenBrook.²

The state alleged that the companies misrepresented their repair practices and let properties deteriorate into uninhabitable conditions in violation of Minnesota consumer protection laws. Tenants reported repeated loss of heat, no hot water, water leaks, mold, severe pest infestations, and backed-up sewer systems.³ The complaint also accused the landlords of violating lead-paint hazard laws and ignoring the governor’s emergency orders that barred evictions during the pandemic. In December 2023, a court issued a temporary injunction requiring Progress to comply with state and federal lead-hazard rules.⁴

What the March 2024 Settlement Requires

On March 15, 2024, the attorney general announced a consent judgment. Its main terms:

A $2.2 million restitution fund for current and former tenants who experienced delayed repairs, had a household member diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels, or were illegally evicted during the pandemic moratorium.²
Forgiveness of up to roughly $1.99 million in unpaid rent owed by former Minnesota tenants.⁵
Habitability duties for any homes not sold, including compliance with lead-paint laws, prompt response to emergency and standard repair requests, sharing of city inspection reports with tenants, and rent reductions when city-ordered repairs run late.²
Early lease termination with debt forgiveness for existing tenants who owed at least two months’ rent, plus $1,000 in relocation assistance per household and full security deposit refunds with interest for all tenants.⁵
A pathway to sell the Minnesota rental homes to affordable housing organizations, with tenants protected from displacement during any sale.²

The Twin Cities Sale That Followed

In January 2025, Pretium acted on the divestment provision by selling 345 single-family homes in the Twin Cities metropolitan area to a nonprofit partnership led by Brick By Brick (B3) and the Housing Partnership Network. The portfolio had an average property value of $285,000. Tenants in good standing can stay as renters. Vacant homes are being renovated and resold to organizations such as Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, which then sell them to low- and moderate-income buyers at about 70 percent of the area median resale price.⁶

The Indiana Fair Housing Class Action

On November 20, 2024, a Black rental applicant named Marckus Williams and the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana filed a proposed class action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The case, Williams v. Progress Residential, LLC (1:24-cv-02050), alleged that the company’s blanket criminal history screening policy violated the federal Fair Housing Act and the Indiana Fair Housing Law.⁷

The complaint said Progress automatically denied any applicant with a felony conviction within the past ten years, certain felonies regardless of date, or a misdemeanor within the past three years, with no individualized review, no verification of screening reports, and no chance for applicants to show rehabilitation. Between 2019 and 2021, Black applicants were reportedly disqualified for misdemeanors at 4.44 times the rate of white applicants and for felonies at 8.16 times the rate.⁸ Williams applied for a Progress rental in Indianapolis in December 2022. His screening report included three prior records, but the complaint alleged that two had been expunged and one was not a conviction. Progress denied him automatically.⁷

No class was certified. After stays and extensions in early 2025 while the parties mediated, the plaintiffs filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on July 25, 2025, and the case closed three days later. The docket contains no public information about whether the parties reached a confidential settlement or whether Progress agreed to change its screening practices.⁹

Congressional Investigation Into Pandemic Evictions

The U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis found in 2022 that Progress and its subsidiaries filed more than 6,000 eviction cases during the first 16 months of the pandemic, a period when federal moratoriums were supposed to protect tenants. Internal policies directed employees to begin eviction proceedings against tenants as little as $500 to $1,000 behind, and the company filed against tenants who were waiting on government rental assistance.¹⁰

In June 2021, Senator Sherrod Brown, then chair of the Senate Banking Committee, asked Progress to explain the concentration of eviction filings in majority-Black communities.¹¹ Earlier that year, in March 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission announced a joint investigation into the eviction practices of major corporate landlords, with Pretium and Progress named as targets. No public enforcement action from that federal investigation has been reported.¹²

Tenant Complaints Behind the Cases

The formal litigation sits on top of a large body of tenant grievances. As of early 2023, Progress Residential had 1,798 complaints on file with the Better Business Bureau.¹³

Fees

Standard Progress leases have included a $125 late fee that can rise for repeat late payments, a $125 lease administration fee, a $200 eviction administration fee for document preparation, a $75 trip fee for maintenance visits, a $40 charge for posting a pay-or-quit notice, and mandatory enrollment in a utility billing program with a $25 setup fee and a $9.99 monthly service charge.¹³ One tenant was charged a $150 late fee after a payment came up one cent short of the balance due.¹⁴ Tenants have also reported being charged for homeowners association violations that predated their tenancy or were the landlord’s responsibility. Some who disputed these charges said they were locked out of the online payment portal, which triggered late fees and, in at least one Atlanta case, an eviction filing.

Maintenance

Habitability complaints extend beyond Minnesota. A Fox 13 investigation featured tenants who moved into homes that had not been cleaned, including feces on baseboards and toilets. A former Progress employee described chronic issues across the portfolio: roof leaks, slab leaks, failing septic tanks, and aging appliances that caused fires. The former employee said staffing was as low as two account managers for 5,000 to 6,000 homes, and that staff were pressured to deny or delay maintenance requests. Progress disputed these characterizations, saying it maintains the “highest ratio of employees per managed home” in the industry and completes 80 percent of service requests on the first visit.¹⁴

Eviction Filings as Collection Pressure

Reports describe a pattern of using eviction filings not to remove tenants but to pressure payment. Tenants who fell behind on rent, sometimes because of billing disputes or erroneous charges, were placed into eviction status. In several documented cases, tenants who complained about maintenance or contacted state officials were then served with eviction notices, raising retaliation concerns.¹³

Who Owns Progress Residential

Progress Residential is the property management and operational arm of Pretium Partners, a private equity firm founded by Donald R. Mullen Jr., a former Goldman Sachs executive. Pretium raised over $1 billion to buy single-family homes after the 2008 housing crisis, targeting entry-level suburban properties with all-cash offers.¹¹ In January 2021, Pretium and Ares Management closed a $2.5 billion acquisition of Front Yard Residential, which added nearly 15,000 homes to the portfolio Progress manages.¹⁵

1
REI INK. Progress Residential
2
Minnesota Attorney General. HavenBrook Homes Settlement
3
Minnesota Lawyer. HavenBrook Homes Agrees to Settlement With Minnesota’s Attorney General
4
Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Progress Residential to Pay MN Tenants Millions
5
Star Tribune. Attorney General’s Office Settles With Landlord Accused of Neglecting North Minneapolis Homes
6
Housing Partnership Network. Nonprofit Partnership Preserves 345 Single-Family Twin Cities Homes
7
Relman Colfax PLLC. Williams and FHCCI v. Progress Residential Fair Housing
8
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse. Williams v. Progress Residential, LLC
9
CourtListener. Williams v. Progress Residential, LLC
10
U.S. House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Clyburn, Siegel, Invitation Homes, Pretium, Ventron Pandemic Evictions
11
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. How a Billion-Dollar Housing Bet Upended a Tennessee Neighborhood
12
Private Equity Stakeholder Project. CFPB FTC Investigation Into Private Equity Landlords Should Focus on Worst Offenders
13
Private Equity Stakeholder Project. PESP Report on Progress Residential
14
FOX 13 News. Renters Recall Nightmare Experiences With Corporate Landlord Progress Residential
15
Private Equity Stakeholder Project. Pandemic Evictor: Pretium Partners