September 23, 2020
Fort Bragg, North Carolina. On August 31, 2020, our firm – along with co-counsel Robert Metro of Bauer & Metro of Hilton Head, South Carolina and Andy Penry with Penry | Riemann of Raleigh – filed a 94-page amended complaint against military housing giant, Corvias Group, on behalf of members of the United States Army stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina who leased inadequate military housing as supplied by Corvias.
Fort Bragg is the most populated military base in the United States and includes nearly 6,500 families. In 1996, Congress established the Military Housing Privatization Initiative in efforts to privatize and to improve the quality of housing conditions for active-duty military personnel. In 2003, Corvias took control of housing at Fort Bragg. Since taking control of housing, Corvias has received thousands of complaint and repair requests, evidencing serious defects which have existed throughout its ownership and maintenance of housing developments at Fort Bragg.
The complaint alleges the Corvias knowingly leased substandard homes and conspired to conceal harmful environmental and structural housing defects from unsuspecting service members and their families, compounded by grossly inadequate repairs and maintenance service. Military families’ pleas to Congress and governmental agencies resulted in the nonprofit MFAN (Military Family Advisory Network) releasing a report reflecting that over 67% of all Fort Bragg families surveyed reported manifest effects from maintenance, repairs, and mediation. Heads of the Corvias admitted to Congress in 2019, under oath, its responsibility for unacceptable conditions. The complaint requests retrospective relief for the harms suffered by military service members and their families. The complaint requests class action designation.
Our complaint details numerous defective housing conditions suffered by our clients, including but not limited to the following:
Our complaint alleges evidence of Corvias’ efforts to: conceal reported harmful environment and structural housing defects in all of the homes; direct shoddy repairs to cut costs; direct maintenance workers and vendors to conceal defects and not disclose defects to tenants; and direct the same not to use words such as “mold” around tenants. Corvias work orders disguised complaints and inaccurately downplayed reported and observed defects. Corvias asked residents to overlook defects on numerous occasions. In one disturbing example, when a family complained of lead paint and lead piping, Corvias advised the residents not to drink their tap water and not to let their toddler “eat paint chips.”
Most tenants used the entirety of their housing allowance to afford the inadequate units, and many were forced to use low military salaries pay for their own repairs.
Our firm seeks a jury trial to address numerous issues including whether Corvias breached numerous housing statutes; concealed material facts and information about the units to residents; colluded and conspired to evade their repair and maintenance obligations by labeling housing defects as “wear and tear;” overcharged Plaintiffs for repair and maintenance items; used unfair and deceptive practices; and whether class members incurred substantial and unreasonable loss of use and enjoyment of their leaseholds of their homes, rising to the level of breach of the warranty of habitability, or, temporary recurrent private nuisance, for which they should be entitled to a refund reflecting the diminished rental value of the units during the class period as a result.
