A San Diego entrepreneur has filed a whistleblower lawsuit accusing one of the nation’s largest home leasers of cheating 18 California cities by systematically avoiding permit fees and higher tax assessments.
The legal complaint, which was filed in 2020 but sealed by a San Diego judge until late last year, claims Texas-based Invitation Homes renovated thousands of properties without obtaining the proper permits.
“The vast majority of IH’s renovations required permits — including for demolishing and constructing sections of single-family homes, installing and demolishing pools, and significantly altering the electrical work — but permits were not obtained,” the lawsuit states.
“Once the single-family homes were renovated without the required permits, IH rented them to tenants who were unaware of the unpermitted and potentially unsafe renovations,” it said.
The case was brought by La Jolla entrepreneur Neil Senturia, who is married to former City Councilwoman Barbara Bry. He also writes a business column for The San Diego Union-Tribune.
According to the lawsuit, a real estate analytics firm Senturia co-founded in 2018 used artificial intelligence and “machine learning” technology to identify residential properties that were renovated without permits.
Deckard Technologies developed proprietary software that sweeps public databases to find anomalies that could indicate a lack of compliance with government regulations.
Invitation Homes has an extraordinarily low number of...
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