Rockville Company Accused Of Charging Illegal Fees Reaches Settlement

ROCKVILLE, MD — The Consumer Protection Division of the Office of the Maryland Attorney General reached a settlement Thursday with a Rockville-based property management company accused of charging its tenants illegal fees.

In addition to the illegal fees allegation, 786 Property Management, Inc., and its owner, Suleman Hooda, were said to have failed to properly maintain and return tenants' security deposits and was acting as an unlicensed debt collector, according to the attorney general's office.

On Thursday, Hooda and the company signed an Assurance of Discontinuance, saying that it would cease the practices identified as illegal by the attorney general's office and agreed to pay restitution and a penalty.

“When you are working hard to pay rent and put a roof over your head, every dollar matters,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said, in a release. “Marylanders need to know that my Consumer Protection Division is here to protect them and their hard-earned dollars, so I am very pleased that the money that was collected as fees and interest will be returned. Landlords must follow the laws put in place to protect tenants, especially those laws that limit the fees tenants can be charged.”

Hooda and his company, which trades as Real Property Management Capital, agreed to pay $150,000 to its tenants. This amount represents how much RPMC was said to have improperly charged or withheld from its tenants, according to the CPM.

RPMC and Hooda also agreed to follow the state's landlord and tenant and debt collection laws and pay a penalty of $50,000. If they violate that agreement, the penalty will increase to $250,000.

Any consumer who is owed a refund in connection with this agreement does not need to take any action in order to receive a refund, according to the attorney general's office.