'It's bad over here': Todd Rokita's office sues Willow Brook apartments on north side
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Dale Mayhew has lived at Willow Brook Apartments along Keystone Avenue on the north side for 36 years, cycling through at least five property managers, but he said he's never encountered one as bad his current one, a Michigan-based company called Beztak that took over in June 2021.
"This has been my castle," the 85-year-old house-proud retired radio DJ, who lives on Social Security, said. It is the home he hopes to live out the rest of his life in, having spent over $20,000 improving it over the years: building a deck, installing an exhaust fan in the bathroom to prevent mold, remodeling the dining room.
But lately the castle has been crumbling. He's faced problems from a lack of heat insulation to blocked gutters that have gone unaddressed for months, leading to basement flooding during heavy rain.
His landlord has continued to charge him $25 a month in pet rent for his cat who has been dead since 2021, according to Mayhew and lease documents reviewed by IndyStar. His repeated attempts to get in touch with Beztak to fix these problems have been like talking to a wall, he said. Instead, Beztak allowed his lease to lapse and become a month-to-month tenancy, effectively doubling his rent from $630 to $1,200, he said, even though he already paid for a year's worth of rent in advance in December.
The situation is so bad the Indiana Attorney General's Office filed a civil lawsuit Wednesday against the apartment owner, a New Jersey-based company called Willow Brook Gardens LLC, and Beztak.
It alleges that they have habitually failed to respond to residents’ maintenance calls, allowed conditions to become uninhabitable, failed to provide executed lease agreements and improperly billed tenants. Mayhew, along with six other tenants, provided testimony as part of the lawsuit.
"This case represents yet another example of out-of-state real estate investors seeking to put their heel on the neck of working-class Hoosiers," Attorney General Todd Rokita wrote in a news release.
The lawsuit alleges that the companies' conduct violates Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act. It also alleges that Beztak is not registered to do business in Indiana and is also operating without a required real estate broker company license, thus violating the Indiana Home Loan Practices Act.
"Such activity is unfair, deceptive and abusive to their tenant residents," the Attorney General's Homeowner Protection Unit section Chief Chase Haller wrote in a press release, stating that the companies have been deficient at meeting their basic legal obligations to their tenants all the while they continue to unfairly collect rent.
A spokesperson for Beztak, Danette Stenta, told IndyStar in an emailed statement that the company does not want to comment on the specifics of pending litigation but that company officials dispute that Beztak is not licensed and unauthorized to conduct business in the state of Indiana. Stenta added that Beztak is further investigating the other allegations.
Willow Brook Apartments did not immediately respond to IndyStar's request for comment.
The apartments at 2111 E. 52nd St. consist of 48 townhomes, where many elderly residents live on fixed incomes. The lawsuit states that Beztak also manages five other apartments complexes in Indianapolis, Speedway and Beech Grove:
Wellington Village located at 1714 Wellington Ave
The Hermitage at 2234 Hermitage Way
Eagle Lake Landing at 2054 High Eagle Trail
Briergate Apartments at 9117 Briergate Ct.
Beech Meadow at 147 Diplomat Ct.
This is the second lawsuit the attorney general has filed in two years against an out-of-state problem landlord, the result of consumer complaints brought to and investigated by the office. Last year, after a prolonged legal battle, the state successfully banned JPC Affordable Housing Foundation, which was behind the notorious Lakeside Pointe apartments, from Indiana for seven years.
In this case, the attorney general is trying to force Willow Brook and Beztak to make good on their obligations to tenants, asking the court to order the companies pay tenants for damages, unjust costs they were billed for, and extra utility bills that tenants had to foot as a result of utility systems they failed to repair like water leaks. The lawsuit asks for Willow Brook to be ordered to hire a licensed company to manage the apartments.
If Willow Brook fails to do so, the lawsuit asks for a court-ordered receiver to take over management of the apartments. It's not clear if a judge would take such a drastic measure, however, as the attorney general had previously tried and failed to convince the court to appoint a receiver in the 2021 Lakeside Pointe apartments case.
"It is hard to know what the motivations are for this alleged conduct," Kelly Stevenson, press secretary for the Attorney General's Office, wrote in an email to IndyStar. "At best, it is poor management, and at worst, it is likely greed."
She added that it is difficult to hold the individuals behind such corporate entities accountable.
Public records from the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office list Simcha Kraus of Lakewood, New Jersey, as a member of Willow Brook Gardens, LLC, as of April 2021. IndyStar could not immediately reach Kraus for comment.
Willow Brook violates health department standards
Willow Brook apartments has had at least 22 Marion County Health Department cases against it since Beztak took over management of the property in June 2021, according to health department online records.
IndyStar spoke with six tenants and found a pattern of neglect, mismanagement and hazardous living conditions.
Problems, some of which are listed in the legal complaint, include rent checks gone missing resulting apparently unjustified eviction filings, unexplained fees slapped onto bills, a lack of electricity in decades-old apartments, poor insulation in freezing winters and sweltering summers, leaks that go unfixed for months, causing tenants to rack up hundreds of dollars in water bills, hazardous mold and flooded basements.
Tenant Juanita Newland, had to rig up a wheelchair-accessible ramp over the concrete steps at her home's entrance because Beztak wouldn't do it, according to the legal complaint.
Before the attorney general stepped in, tenants at Willow Brook had already tried another route to get their landlord to fix their homes: by calling the health department, to no avail.
The Marion County’s Health and Hospital Environmental Court had ordered judgments against the apartment owner on Jan. 24. When Willow Brook failed to appear at a compliance hearing or make progress on repairs, the health department obtained another court order, according to the complaint.
Again, Willow Brook failed to appear at the hearing or make the repairs, according to the complaint.
"It's bad over here," Charelle Richmond, a 31-year-old pregnant mom said. Since moving into Willlow Brook in 2020, she said, she has dealt with mold, lack of electricity, a gas leak, and a water leak in her bathroom that went unfixed for months, leading to a $900 water bill. "They're terrible people."
When maintenance requests were responded to, tenants said, the fixes would often be band-aid solutions.
One tenant, Muriah Govan, who cares for two sick parents who live with her, said the maintenance team used a piece of garden hose feeding into the basement to fix a leaky kitchen sink, instead of repairing the pipes.
Richmond and her autistic son both suffer from asthma that has been aggravated by mold growing behind her washer and dryer. She said she had to bleach it herself. It was months before the property manager came to address it, she said. Even then, she said, they just painted it over.
The health department found dangerous electrical sockets that are not grounded, but they still have not been fixed, she said.
In January 2022, her furnace broke. A gas leak made her apartment smell of gas, she said. She had to stay with her mother for a month, during which she continued to pay rent.
"Their performance and communication are horrible," she said. "All they do is keep going up on fees on us. It's unacceptable."
In April 2022, the health department found the apartment in multiple violations of housing code in Richmond's home. The case remains unresolved.
Richmond contributed her testimony to the lawsuit. She hopes that the lawsuit will get Beztak out and new, responsible management in.
Beztak boasts on its company website that it was named a U.S. Best Managed Companies for four years in a row, an industry program sponsored by Deloitte and the Wall Street Journal.
But three tenants told IndyStar the company is the worst property manager they have ever encountered, including Tom McNamara, 70, a billiards instructor and general contractor.
McNamara has taken to fixing up a multitude of problems in his home by himself. He bought a ladder to clear blocked gutters himself, which cause basement flooding when it rains. He rigged up his own LED lights and extension cords because many of his apartment's electrical sockets don't work. The water pressure in his apartment is extremely low. His front room sits in near-darkness, making it hard to see.
"They're shitting on us," he said. He said he hand-delivers rent checks for his $705 monthly rent to the property manager's mailbox every month and yet was served an eviction notice on July 8 for $865 in unpaid rent, which he said doesn't make any sense. According to images reviewed by IndyStar, he deposited the rent check on July 2.
Like many tenants, McNamara is stuck between a rock and a hard place, unable to afford to move, but frustrated by precarious living conditions that the property managers won't address quickly enough.
"I'm doing without because I'm afraid to say anything and they’d boot me out," he said. "It would destroy my life if I had to move."
But he's not giving up. He's been speaking with the Attorney General's Office and said he would be a witness in the lawsuit against his landlord.
"I'm a fighting Irishman and I'll fight to the death for what I believe in," he said.
No court dates have been scheduled.
Contact the reporter at 317-903-7071 or kcheang@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: AG Todd Rokita's office sues Willow Brook apartments in Indianapolis
