A Brooklyn real estate firm must return $150,000 in “good faith” deposits it kept from apartment applicants, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on September 18, 2026. The firm, Brooklyn High Rise LLC, charged applicants $500 to $750 to hold an apartment while their applications were processed, and an estimated 300 people who withdrew or were denied between January 2020 and December 2025 never got that money back. The restitution is part of a $352,250 settlement that also resolves findings that the firm illegally blacklisted tenants based on their housing court records.
How The Good Faith Deposits Worked
According to the attorney general’s announcement, Brooklyn High Rise required applicants to pay between $500 and $750 as a “good faith deposit” to hold an apartment during the application process. The firm told applicants the payment would be applied to their first month’s rent if they were approved, or returned if they were denied.
The fine print told a different story. The attorney general’s office said the terms and conditions on the firm’s website listed circumstances in which a deposit might not be returned, including failure to submit a completed application and required paperwork by a set deadline. The investigation found the firm illegally charged these deposits and often failed to return them when applicants withdrew or were turned down.
Between January 2020 and December 2025, the office estimates, about 300 applicants who either withdrew their applications or were denied housing never received their deposit back. At $500 to $750 each, those losses add up to roughly the $150,000 restitution fund the firm must now pay.
A deposit that never came back. Brooklyn High Rise applicants were promised a refund if a deal fell through, and the ones now filing claims will lean on receipts, bank statements and denial emails, exactly the kind of evidence the protected-funds and dispute log in The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit is designed to keep in order.
Who Can Claim A Refund And How Much
The settlement sets aside $150,000 in restitution for applicants who paid the good faith deposit and either withdrew their applications or were denied housing without getting the money back. According to the attorney general, everyone who applied for housing through the Brooklyn High Rise website and whose application was denied or withdrawn between January 2020 and December 2025 will be contacted by the firm.
Those applicants can file claims for a payment of $500 or, in some cases, $750, matching the amount of the deposit originally paid. The office did not publish a separate claim deadline in its announcement, and the contact is expected to come from Brooklyn High Rise itself.
Former applicants who expect to be contacted should gather what they have from the period: the listing, the application confirmation, any receipt or bank record showing the deposit, and the email or text that ended the application. Those documents help confirm the amount owed and the dates that place an applicant inside the covered window. A legitimate claim process should not require an upfront fee, and anyone unsure about a message can check it against the attorney general’s office directly at 1-800-771-7755.
The Blacklisting Findings Behind The Case
The deposit problem surfaced during a broader investigation into tenant blacklisting. In May 2025, the attorney general’s office opened an inquiry into Brooklyn High Rise after learning the broker kept requesting tenant screening reports from a third-party vendor that included landlord-tenant court histories.
The office found that between July 15, 2019 and September 5, 2025, the firm obtained housing court records on some prospective tenants, and 203 applicants were illegally denied housing based on their court history. New York’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 made it illegal for a landlord to deny a rental application based on an applicant’s past housing court records.
Of the $352,250 total, $202,250 is a penalty for violating the blacklisting law, and $150,000 is the deposit restitution. The firm also agreed to stop seeking court records, remove questions about court history and criminal background from its applications, retrain its leasing staff and publicly affirm compliance with New York’s anti-blacklisting and anti-discrimination laws.
“All New Yorkers deserve to be treated fairly when applying for housing opportunities,” James said. “At a time when it is difficult to find safe and affordable housing in New York and across the country, it is unacceptable that Brooklyn High Rise used housing court records as a basis to deny housing to hard-working New Yorkers.”
The case was handled by Assistant Attorney General Jane Landry-Reyes of the office’s Housing Protection Unit, under the supervision of Unit Chief Brent Meltzer.
What Older Renters Should Watch For In Application Fees
Older New Yorkers often find themselves back in the rental market after selling a home, downsizing, losing a spouse or facing a rent increase on a fixed income. In a tight market, the pressure to put down money quickly to hold an apartment is intense, and a few hundred dollars can matter a great deal to someone living on Social Security.
The Brooklyn High Rise case shows how a hold deposit described as refundable can come with conditions buried elsewhere. Before paying anything during an application, renters benefit from getting in writing what the payment is called, what it will be applied to and exactly when it will be returned. Keeping a copy of the website terms as they appeared on the day of payment matters too, since those terms can change later.
Applicants who believe they were turned down because of a prior housing court case, even one they won or that was dismissed, can file a complaint through the attorney general’s tenant blacklisting complaint form. Under state law, when a landlord obtained an applicant’s court records and then denied the application, the denial is presumed illegal, and the burden shifts to the landlord to show another reason. The attorney general’s office has urged landlords and brokers to stop requesting court records and rental histories altogether and to drop screening companies that continue to supply them.
Getting Money Back From A Landlord Who Held It
For the roughly 300 applicants in this case, the refund depends on matching a payment to a date and an outcome. Renters elsewhere with a withheld deposit or a disputed rental balance face the same task, often with less help from regulators.
The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit includes a protected-funds and dispute log for recording each payment, promise and response, plus the debt-validation steps for pushing back if a landlord or collector later claims money is owed.
Both are part of The Bank Account & Debt Protection Kit.
This article was prepared with AI assistance and reviewed against the linked official sources.
