GBP Gables Residential Trust

Litigation Continues Against Other National Landlords Alleging over $70 Million in Illegal Charges to 55,000 Florida Tenants The law firms Rod Tennyson, P.A., and Babbitt, Johnson, Osborne & Le Clainche, P.A., announced today that Gables Residential, Inc, http://www.gables.com/, (NYSE:GBP), one of the nation's largest publicly traded apartment landlords, has agreed to provide up to $3 million for refunds and to remove $16 million from credit reports to settle a class action filed by tenants charged with illegal lease termination fees in a class action case. These fees are commonly called "insufficient notice fee," "early termination fee," and/or "liquidated damage fee." It has also agreed to wipe out $16 million in debts from their credit reports. Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jonathan D. Gerber approved the settlement in a final judgment on August 12, 2005, giving thousands of Florida Gables former tenants who may have actually paid these illegal fees until October 11, 2005 to make a claim for monetary damages. It is estimated that 90 percent of class member tenants had adverse reports to their credit bureaus as a result of these illegal fees. This case - and four others pending against major apartment landlords in Florida and the nation - have the potential of wiping out $70 million worth of bad credit reports for 55,000 tenants. The defendants are Equity Residential, Trammel Crow, ZOM Residential Services and Concord Management. "Filing these cases is simply the right thing to do," said West Palm Beach lawyer Ted Babbitt of Babbitt, Johnson, Osborne & Le Clainche, P.A., who represents the tenants with Rod Tennyson of Rod Tennyson, P.A., also of West Palm Beach. "It would go a long way toward restoring the good name and good credit for people harmed by illegal fees." The Gables settlement, resulting from a case filed in December 2002, affects 12,000 tenants, who faced illegal fees averaging $1,396 each. Gables did not admit to the illegality of the fees but agreed to the settlement and to cease the practices in the future. "This settlement is important because it wipes out $16 million in bad credit information from illegal fees," Tennyson said. "We believe it's a model for future resolution in doing the right thing by tenants, mostly in their twenties and early thirties, and help them get their credit reports accurate and to raise their credit scores. I would urge all former tenants to get their free annual credit reports at the Federal Trade Commission site at http://www.annualcreditreport.com to see if their former landlords may have reported these unlawful fees to the credit bureau." Based in Boca Raton, Gables manages 52,860 apartment homes in 188 communities, owns 85 communities with 23,768 stabilized apartment homes and has an additional nine communities with 2,388 apartment homes under development or lease-up. The Gables Residential website lists 17 complexes in Palm Beach County, eight in Broward, three in Miami-Dade, six in Central Florida, three in the Tampa Bay area and one in St. Lucie County. For more information and a listing of properties by area, see http://www.gablesclassaction.org. Babbitt and Tennyson have similar litigation against America's largest landlord, Chicago-based Equity Residential (NYSE:EQR), http://www.equityapartments.com/. On December 1 of last year, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Susan R. Lubitz concluded the Real Estate Investment Trust knowingly violated Florida law by illegally charging tenants these illegal fees if they left before their one-year leases were up or failed to give notice of non-renewal. Judge Lubitz then ordered Equity to remove over $15 million in these illegal charges from the credit reports of 14,700 former Equity tenants. Equity has appealed and lost twice. Most recently, on July 6th of this year the Fourth District Court of Appeals affirmed the Equity class certification. The Equity suit was filed in November 2002. Equity, with $12.5 billion in assets, is the nation's largest publicly traded apartment owner, with 33,000 apartments in Florida. For more information and a complete listing of properties by area, see http://www.equityclassaction.org. Tennyson and Babbitt have filed similar potential three other major Florida landlords in Palm Beach County Circuit Court: - Trammell Crow, http://www.tcresidential.com/, (NYSE:TCC), with 29 Florida communities, affecting 10,300 potential class members with an average liability of $1,635 (Garber v. Trammell Crow, 50-2005-CA001271); - ZOM Residential Services, http://www.zomusa.com/custom/zom/about_zrs.html, (ZRS) of Orlando with 22 Florida communities (Webster v. ZOM, 50-2005-CA003009); - Concord Management, http://www.ced-concord.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=concord.main, of Maitland, Fl. with 70 Florida communities (McLean v. Concord, 50-2005-CA005051); (The complaints can be viewed at http://www.rodtennyson.com) (Gables suit: Christopher Water et al. v. Gables Residential Trust, etc. et al, Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm Beach County, Civil Case No. 02-CA-14989. Equity suit: Tammy Yates, Peter Miller, Maria Cruz and Jose Ortega as Class Representatives v. Equity Residential Properties, et al., Civil Case No. CA 02-14116, Palm Beach County Circuit Court.) Further information on the suits and general background is available at http://www.babbitt-johnson.com or http://www.rodtennyson.com. Rod Tennyson, whose practice includes consumer protection litigation, actually wrote the consumer protection laws he said the landlord defendants violated while he served as a Florida Assistant Attorney General in the 1970s. Ted Babbitt is founding partner of his 37-year-old firm, which represents catastrophically injured and wronged people in pharmaceutical litigation, brokerage fraud, personal injury and wrongful death, products liability and medical and legal malpractice cases.