LONG CON?

Apartment Building Tenants Sue Donald Trump, Alleging Decade-Long Rent Inflation

Tenants at more than 30 former Trump family buildings say their landlords boosted the cost of materials for improvements, which increased rents.

Tenants from dozens of New York City apartment buildings that belonged to Donald Trump’s father have sued the president and his siblings, alleging the family inflated rents over many years, The New York Times reports. The tenants of more than 30 buildings in Brooklyn accuse Trump and his family of inflating the costs of improvements to the apartments by 20 percent or more, a scheme that ran from 1992 to 2004, when the family sold the buildings, according to the Times. Improving a rent-controlled apartment in New York City allows the landlord to increase the rent by a certain percentage, so the Trumps allegedly passed the inflated costs on to their tenants, who are seeking recompense for the extra rent, interest, and damages.