Tenants of Seaview Lofts apartments sue owner, allege housing violations have left some battling depression and sleeping in cars

Dozens of tenants of a condemned Newport News apartment building are suing the company’s New Jersey-based owner, alleging his failure to fix known issues in the building violates state and federal housing laws.

The tenants of Seaview Lofts contend owner Ben Weinstein has put nearly nothing into property maintenance. He dragged his feet on repairs, they say, even while collecting nearly $500,000 in COVID-related rental subsidies and rents from tenants averaging more than $900 a month.

The Virginia Poverty Law Center, which is spearheading the legal effort on behalf of tenants, filed a pair of lawsuits last week in state and federal courts that detail the allegations.

The legal action comes more than a month after 100 tenants and their families were given 48 hours to leave the 15-story apartment building after the city deemed it unsafe and a judge ordered it vacated.

Weinstein bought the building, at 28th Street and West Avenue, in early 2020 for $9.3 million. Between March 2021 and July 2022, the complaints assert, the government paid Weinstein about $482,000 in COVID-related rental subsidies in addition to the rent he’s collected.

But he’s “invested almost nothing in the building” to maintain it, the state complaint asserts. The company has gone through several property managers but has “rejected maintenance proposals because they are too costly.”

“Defendants collected substantial rents, yet rather than use a ... sufficient amount to cover basic and minimal maintenance and operations expenses, they have depleted, removed and bled dry the assets of Seaview Apartments LLC,” the federal complaint asserts.

The state lawsuit filed Friday in Newport News Circuit Court on behalf of 58 tenants, alleges Weinstein and Seaview Lofts violated the Virginia Residential Landlord Tenant Act by taking their rent money but failing to operate a safe and livable building.

The federal class-action lawsuit, filed by 19 tenants Thursday in U.S. District Court in Newport News, contends Seaview’s actions violated the federal Fair Housing Act by discriminating against military veterans and seniors with medical and mobility issues.

“Ben Weinstein, hiding behind a corporate alias, meets the dictionary definition of slumlord,” Laura Dobbs, an attorney with Virginia Poverty Law Center, said in a news release. “He uses various corporate shells to rent unsafe properties to poor people at apartment complexes around the East Coast.”

Weinstein could not be reached for comment at his offices of the BlueRise Group, a housing property company based in Lakewood, New Jersey.

Kaitlin Baxter, an attorney with David, Kamp and Frank, a Newport News law firm representing him and the company, said they haven’t yet been served with the lawsuit but take such allegations seriously and will “address the claims in the proper judicial venues as they arise.”

“They remain focused on making repairs and renovations to the building so that tenants will be allowed to return,” Baxter said in a statement.

A tenant first told the city March 10 that one of the building’s two elevators wasn’t working, according to the lawsuits. The city gave Seaview 30 days to fix the problem. But on April 11, both building elevators were found to be out of order.

After the elevator issue persisted for several weeks, the city condemned the property for the elevator issues as well as other problems with the electrical and fire detection systems and other issues. The lawsuits add that there are significant issues with water leaks, mold growth, cockroach and rodent infestation, and heating and cooling systems that malfunction during the hottest and coldest months.

The city of Newport News paid for tenants to stay at area hotels and motels for a couple of weeks — billing Weinstein more than $140,000. But the city stopped covering those expenses July 14, with tenants now on their own.

One plaintiff, John Towler, 55, a disabled military veteran, has lived in Seaview Lofts since September 2017. He is a lower left leg and right foot amputee, and had significant issues getting home when the elevators were out in both mid-2021 and early 2022, the complaint asserts.

“This military veteran had to crawl up seven flights of stairs on his stomach and back to reach his apartment in order to get his insulin,” the complaint said. “The uncertainty about his living arrangements has caused him stress, high blood pressure and severe depression due to his unknown future.”

Another plaintiff, Margaret Eley, 80, is on Social Security and lived at Seaview Lofts since 2011. She has back and knee issues and uses a walker or scooter to get around, with the elevator outage meaning she could not get safely up and down the stairs.

Eley had leaks in her bathroom ceiling, a dishwasher that didn’t work for four years and “an influx of rats and roaches” after the company stopped pest control service in early 2022. She also didn’t have heating or air conditioning for most of 2021.

She’s been paying for a hotel out of her own pocket since the city stopped paying. “She is quickly depleting what little funds she has saved,” and “is concerned she is going to run out of money,” the complaint says.

Another resident, Linda Charity, 56, worked on the maintenance staff before Weinstein bought the building and fired the entire staff. She recalled that with the prior owner, workers had an “on-call elevator company” that they’d call to have elevators immediately fixed.

Many tenants are now living with relatives or even sleeping in their cars, according to the complaints, which the Virginia Poverty Law Center filed with the help of the Consumer Litigation Associates law firm in Newport News and the Fairfax law firm of KellyGuzzo LLC.

The lawsuits ask for a jury trial, court orders that Weinstein follow housing law, as well as damages and attorney fees. While the federal lawsuit doesn’t specify the damages, the state action calls for $250,000 for each plaintiff.

Weinstein appeared in Newport News Circuit Court Friday as part of an ongoing case related to the condition of the building. He testified he was working on getting the building fixed up.

Judge Christopher Papile told Weinstein Friday that he was “disheartened” by the landlord’s failure to fix up the property, despite court orders to do so. The judge ruled Weinstein in contempt — fining him $1,000 a day — until he brings the property up to code.

The next court date in that case is set for Thursday.

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com