YES Energy Management Lawsuit: $2.8M Settlement Payouts and Dates

The YES Energy Management lawsuit settlement is a $2.8 million class action resolution that YES Energy Management, Inc. and its parent Yardi Systems, Inc. agreed to pay to roughly 86,137 Maryland tenants who were charged administration fees on their utility bills. A federal judge in Maryland gave the deal final approval on January 31, 2025, and payments to class members began mailing on February 28, 2025.¹

Who Was Covered by the Settlement

The settlement class included every Maryland tenant who paid an administration fee on an invoice from YES Energy between October 4, 2018, and March 19, 2024. YES Energy is a third-party utility billing company that contracts with landlords to bill tenants for water, electricity, and other utilities, often adding its own monthly service charge to the bill. In this case, that charge was a $3.00 monthly “Administration Fee.” Yardi separately charged $0.95 to process electronic rent payments.²

Both YES Energy and Yardi were released from further claims by class members who did not opt out, along with their parent corporations, subsidiaries, and affiliates.²

What the Lawsuit Alleged

Named plaintiff Monica Sullivan sued in Montgomery County, Maryland; the defendants moved the case to the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in February 2022, where it was docketed as 8:22-cv-00418.³

The theory was narrow but powerful. Under Maryland’s Collection Agency Licensing Act, any business that collects consumer debts on behalf of someone else has to hold a state license. Sullivan argued that YES Energy, by billing tenants for landlords and charging its own fee to do it, was acting as a collection agency without that license. In Maryland, operating unlicensed automatically triggers violations of the Maryland Consumer Debt Collection Act and the Maryland Consumer Protection Act.⁴

In September 2022, the court denied YES Energy’s motion to dismiss, finding Sullivan had “plausibly alleged” the company was acting as an unlicensed collection agency. Yardi’s motion was granted in part — the court dismissed the declaratory judgment claim and one statutory claim against Yardi, but the rest of the case survived against both defendants.⁵

YES Energy and Yardi settled without admitting any wrongdoing.¹

How Much Class Members Received

Payments were calculated on a pro rata basis. Each valid claimant’s share depended on how much they had paid in administration fees compared to the total fees paid by everyone who claimed. When the defendants had records of a tenant’s exact fees, the claim form was pre-populated with that amount. When those precise figures were not available, the settlement applied a “Payment Floor” that assumed 12 months of fees at $4 per month, or $48 total, and claimants could attest to more.⁵

The $2.8 million fund was reduced by court-approved attorney fees (class counsel requested 33% of the fund plus costs) and other expenses. Sullivan, as the class representative, was eligible for a separate incentive payment of up to $15,000 outside the common fund.¹

The agreement built in a second distribution. If uncashed checks left more than $5 per participating class member in the fund, another round of payments would go out. Anything remaining after that was designated for a cy pres award to the Maryland Food Bank.⁵³

Key Dates in the Settlement

Preliminary approval: March 20, 2024³
Initial claims deadline: November 13, 2024
Opt-out and objection deadline: December 13, 2024
Supplemental claims deadline (for additional class members identified later): January 13, 2025²
Fairness hearing and final approval: January 31, 2025
First payments mailed: February 28, 2025¹

The case was officially terminated on January 31, 2025, although docket activity continued into November 2025.³ All claims-filing windows have closed; tenants who did not submit a claim by the deadlines are not eligible for a payment from this fund.

What the Settlement Does Not Cover

This settlement resolved claims by Maryland tenants tied to YES Energy’s administration fee and Yardi’s payment processing fee during the class period. It does not release claims by tenants in other states or claims about separate billing practices.

YES Energy has faced litigation elsewhere. In early 2026, residents of Naples Estates, a mobile home park in Collier County, Florida, filed a class action in Collier Circuit Court against park owner Cal-Am and YES Energy Management, alleging that water and sewer bills were based on “estimated, inflated and inaccurate guesses” rather than actual meter readings, with some charges running 10 to 13 times historical usage and some empty homes billed $200 or more. That case includes claims of price gouging, financial exploitation of the elderly, violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and civil RICO, and it was in its early stages at the time of reporting. It is a separate matter from the Maryland settlement.⁶

1
Sullivan Class Action. Sullivan Class Action Settlement
2
Sullivan Class Action. FAQ
3
CourtListener. Sullivan v. Yes Energy Management
4
GovInfo. Sullivan v. Yes Energy Management, Memorandum Opinion
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Sullivan Class Action. Settlement Agreement
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Naples Press. Senior Residents Claim Theyre Victim of Overbilling