The Trelawny Tenants Union (TTU) has secured a $3.6 million settlement with Portland landlord Geoffrey Rice, resolving a multi-year battle over violations of the city’s rent-control ordinance. The deal, finalized on Sunday after 20 hours of intense mediation, requires Rice to deposit the full amount into an escrow account. Of that sum, $2.86 million will flow directly to more than 1,000 current and former tenants to reimburse them for rent paid above the legal cap since June 2020.
Rice, who owns 19 properties comprising over 300 units in Portland, faced accusations of repeatedly breaking the city’s rent-control law, which took effect on January 1, 2021. The ordinance caps annual rent increases at 70% of a regional inflation measure, with a hard ceiling of 10%. Despite initial cooperation, Rice allegedly ignored these limits, prompting the union to escalate from informal requests to formal legal action and city council lobbying.
The dispute traces back to the pandemic era, when the TTU formed as a mutual aid group to protect tenants from predatory pricing. Ethan Strimling, TTU treasurer and a former Portland mayor, emphasized the collective power behind the victory. “We never could have done this if it had been one person at a time trying to get Geoffrey to adjust their rent,” Strimling told Maine Public. The settlement also includes a $250,000 fine to the City of Portland and $230,000 to the union for administrative costs, with $260,000 held in reserve for potential future violations.
One unit in particular drew attention during the audit process, where rents exceeded the legal limit by $300 annually in 2020. Refunds for that single apartment will top $24,000, split among several residents who occupied the space over the years. Bradley Davis, co-founder of the Portland Tenants Union (PTU) which helped mediate the deal, noted that tenants in other cases have received refunds ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. The city council is now pushing for a digitized rental registration system to streamline the detection of such violations going forward.