Progress Residential $49.75M FTC Settlement: No Refund Yet

The Federal Trade Commission and four state enforcers asked a federal judge on November 6, 2026 to enter a $49.75 million settlement with Progress Residential, LLC and its private equity owner Pretium Partners, LLC over single-family rental ads the government says hid mandatory monthly fees. No refund process exists yet.

Information last verified on November 7, 2026. This is a developing story; we update it as the record changes.

Jurisdiction scope: This article covers one federal civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia under Section 5 of the FTC Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Consumer Review Fairness Act, plus consumer-protection claims brought by Arizona, Colorado, Indiana and Utah. It does not cover private class actions against these companies, eviction procedure, or the deposit rules of any other state. For the rules that govern your own tenancy, start with our state-by-state guide to landlord-tenant law.

What Happened

Five plaintiffs sued Progress Residential, LLC and Pretium Partners, LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, on November 6, 2026: the Federal Trade Commission, the Attorney General of Arizona, Colorado Attorney General Philip J. Weiser, the State of Indiana and the Utah Division of Consumer Protection. The docket number on both filed documents is 1:26-cv-06782-VMC, and the FTC file number is 2423073.

The 125-page complaint pleads 32 counts, numbered I through XXXII. Alongside it the parties filed a 37-page proposed Stipulated Order for Permanent Injunction, Monetary Judgment, and Other Relief.

The signature pages record two different dates. Progress CEO David Feldman, Pretium Co-President Stephen Scherr and outside counsel for both companies signed on October 9, 2026. Counsel for the FTC and for all four states signed on November 6, 2026, the day the papers were filed.

The FTC says the Commission vote authorizing the filing was 2-0. The agency also states in its release that "This is the largest enforcement matter taken against a landlord in the Commission's history." That characterization is the FTC's own.

Progress is wholly owned by Pretium, which founded it in 2014 to manage Pretium's homes, according to paragraph 9 of the complaint.

The Fees and Practices the Complaint Describes

Paragraph 37 alleges that "Since at least 2021, and continuing through present day," Progress failed to advertise the true monthly price because it charged mandatory monthly fees on top of the advertised rent, so that "consumers typically pay between $30 and $330 or more per month than the advertised monthly rental price."

Paragraph 29 lists the undisclosed mandatory monthly fees with amounts: a smart home fee of $17 to $30, a utility management fee of $7.95 to $9.99, an air filter fee of $9.99, a pool fee of $100 to $175, a septic tank fee of $40, a resident benefit package fee of $15, a landscaping fee of $35 to $120 and a pest control fee of $10. The same paragraph alleges Progress revealed the true cost only after collecting application and holding fees, until it learned of the FTC's investigation in November 2024.

Paragraph 44 lists the one-time and situational charges: holding fees of $250 before July 2024 and $500 after, a $125 lease administration fee at move-in, a renter's insurance exemption fee of $14.95 per month, HOA violation fees of $45 per violation notice, and late fees typically of $125 to $150.

The complaint also quotes the companies against themselves. It says a senior marketing executive wrote "we are not delivering on our promise," that a 2024 internal report shared with Pretium found Progress had "no defensible standards/transparency on what and when we should charge a resident," and that a then-CEO in 2023 refused a fix with the words "I am not taking $1M impact to do the right thing." Paragraph 14 alleges an undisclosed policy of using Photoshop in listings to remove dirt from walls and carpets and to insert appliances in place of broken, missing or old ones.

On reviews, the complaint identifies three standard forms that carried a non-disparagement provision: Account Adjustment Agreements from at least September 2022 through July 2024, Early Lease Termination Agreements from at least January 2022 through April 2024, and Relocation Assistance Agreements from at least December 2022 through June 2023. Count X pleads that those form contracts violate the Consumer Review Fairness Act and reaches conduct since March 14, 2017.

What the Proposed Order Would Require

The order is injunctive and permanent in its own terms, and it binds both companies. Each prohibition runs against "Defendants, Defendants' officers, agents, and employees, and all other persons in active concert or participation with any of them," so Pretium carries the conduct obligations alongside Progress and not merely the judgment.

Section I.A bars misrepresenting the Total Monthly Rental Price, whether fees are optional or required, and "the nature, purpose, amount, or refundability of any fee or charge that Defendants charge to consumers," along with claims that properties are inspected or pass an inspection before move-in.

Section II requires the defendants to disclose the Total Monthly Rental Price clearly and conspicuously and to "display the Total Monthly Rental Price more prominently than any other Pricing Information." The order defines that price as "the entire recurring monthly amount to lease a Property, including all recurring mandatory fees or recurring mandatory charges associated with the Property, and excluding variable utility costs and optional fees."

Section III bars withholding deposit money for conditions that existed when the renter took possession, for anything attributable to normal wear and tear, for the cost of inspecting a home to decide whether work is needed, and for capital improvements, renovations and upgrade replacements. It also bars withholding for damage unless Progress actually repairs it before the next tenancy begins.

Section III.C sets the statement deadline: the defendants must give the renter an itemized statement explaining each charge and deduction, and the specific basis for it, "no later than thirty (30) days after a consumer moves out, or within the time period required by state law or lease, whichever is sooner."

Section IV adds annual training on state and local deposit law, retention of inspection records and photographs for at least three years, and delivery of those records to a current or former resident on request. Section V bars offering or enforcing any Review-Limiting Contract Term. Section VI bars late fees, eviction threats and other remedies when a renter's missed payment was caused by a defective or inaccessible payment portal, and bars closing out a work order or dispute without telling the resident and allowing 48 hours to object.

Section XII requires a sworn compliance report one year after entry and change notices for 10 years.

Where the $49.75 Million Goes

Section VIII.A enters judgment of $48,500,000 against both defendants jointly and severally as monetary relief, and Section VIII.C orders them to pay that sum to the Commission. Counsel holds $4,500,000 in escrow for the first payment, due within 10 days of entry. Eleven further payments of $4,000,000 follow at 30-day intervals, the last due within 330 days of the first payment date. Miss one and Section VIII.D makes the whole remaining judgment immediately due with interest.

Section VIII.B enters a separate $1,250,000 judgment for the State of Arizona for attorney's fees and costs. Section VIII.E orders that sum paid within 30 days of entry under A.R.S. section 44-1534, into Arizona's Consumer Protection-Consumer Fraud Revolving Fund per A.R.S. section 44-1531.01.

That $1.25 million is a state legal-cost recovery, not consumer money. The $48.5 million is the only pot the order ties to consumer relief.

Is There a Refund, and How Would You Get One?

Not yet, and nobody has said how. This is the part readers most want answered, so here is the whole of what the record supports as of November 7, 2026.

The FTC's release says the $48.5 million will be used to provide redress to consumers harmed by the companies' conduct. It announces no claims process, no eligibility rule, no per-person figure and no date.

The order is no more specific. Section IX.E says the money "may be deposited into a fund administered by the Commission or its designee to be used for consumer relief, such as redress and any attendant expenses for the administration of any redress fund." It then provides that if a Commission representative "decides that direct redress to consumers is wholly or partially impracticable or money remains after such redress is completed," the FTC may apply the rest to related relief including consumer information remedies, with anything left over going to the U.S. Treasury.

So there is currently nothing to apply for. On how its refund programs generally work, the FTC says "Most FTC cases do not require you to file a claim," because it usually obtains customer lists from the defendant and sends payments directly, and that "It is our goal to send payments within 6 months of receiving the data and money necessary for distribution."

The agency is careful to leave the other door open. The same guidance says that "If we do not have all the information we need to send refunds, we may request that consumers file a claim," and that "If so, information about how to file a claim will be available at www.ftc.gov/refunds." Under this order the money itself arrives in installments running 330 days from a First Payment Date that is itself up to 10 days after entry, and entry has not happened.

Any real redress program for this matter would appear on the FTC's own refunds page at ftc.gov/refunds and on the FTC case page for file number 2423073. Those are the two places worth watching.

Treat Any Progress Residential Claim Site With Suspicion

Large settlement headlines reliably draw impostors, and the FTC runs a standing warning about people who pretend to be the agency offering refunds. Its consumer guidance states flatly that "The FTC never requires you to pay fees or asks you for sensitive information, like your Social Security number or bank account information," and adds that "The FTC also never asks for remote access to your computer." Its refunds page warns that the agency will never say you must transfer money to get a refund.

That gives a clean test while this matter has no claims process at all: anyone collecting a fee, a Social Security number, a bank account number or remote access to your computer in exchange for a Progress Residential payout is not running an FTC redress program. If you are approached, the FTC takes reports at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and our guide on what to do after a scam walks through freezing credit and recovering payments.

What the Law Actually Says

Three federal statutes carry the FTC's side of the case. Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. section 45(a), prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, and Section 45(n) supplies the unfairness test the complaint recites in paragraph 181: substantial injury consumers cannot reasonably avoid, not outweighed by countervailing benefits.

The Consumer Review Fairness Act, 15 U.S.C. section 45b, is the review provision. As the complaint explains in paragraph 212, since March 14, 2017 the statute renders void, and prohibits offering, provisions in form contracts that restrict an individual consumer's ability to post reviews or that penalize them for doing so. A form contract under 15 U.S.C. section 45b(a)(3) is one with standardized terms imposed without a meaningful opportunity to negotiate. Voidness there is a matter of statute, not of this order.

The third is the unusual one. Section 521 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 15 U.S.C. section 6821, bars obtaining customer information of a financial institution by making a false statement to that institution's customer. Count XI alleges that Progress's false statements about price, holding-fee refunds, move-in condition and deposit deductions were made to get consumers' bank account, credit card and debit card numbers, which turns rental marketing claims into a financial-privacy violation.

The state claims track the same conduct through four more statutes. Arizona pleads the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act, A.R.S. sections 44-1521 to 44-1534, at Counts XII to XIV. Colorado pleads the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, C.R.S. section 6-1-101 et seq., at Counts XV to XIX.

Indiana pleads its Deceptive Consumer Sales Act, Ind. Code section 24-5-0.5, at Counts XX to XXVIII, and its Home Loan Practices Act, which the complaint cites as Ind. Code section 37-5, at Counts XXIX and XXX. Utah pleads the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act, Utah Code sections 13-11-4 and 13-11-5, at Counts XXXI and XXXII.

The deposit-statement deadline is where federal and state law interlock, because Section III.C adopts whichever clock is shorter. State law is the one that already binds Progress today.

Arizona gives a landlord, under A.R.S. section 33-1321(D), "Within fourteen days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays or other legal holidays, after termination of the tenancy and delivery of possession and demand by the tenant" to provide an itemized list of all deductions. Note that the clock turns on the tenant making a demand. See our breakdown of Arizona's deposit and notice rules.

Utah Code section 57-17-3(2), effective May 7, 2025, requires delivery "No later than 30 days after the day on which a renter vacates and returns possession of a rental property" of the deposit balance, any prepaid rent and a written itemization of each deduction, as our Utah landlord-tenant summary sets out.

Colorado requires the landlord, under C.R.S. section 38-12-103(1)(a), to return the full security deposit within thirty days after the termination of a lease or surrender of the premises, whichever occurs last, "unless the lease agreement specifies a longer period of time, but not to exceed sixty days," and, where actual cause exists to retain any portion, to provide the tenant "a written statement listing the exact reasons for the retention of any portion of the security deposit." House Bill 25-1249 replaced the earlier "one month" with thirty days effective January 1, 2026. Our Colorado landlord-tenant page tracks the current text.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The money is the headline and the injunction is the substance. A $48.5 million judgment spread over 330 days against a portfolio the complaint puts at more than 90,000 homes works out to a few hundred dollars per home. The pricing and deposit provisions, by contrast, change the unit economics of how a landlord of that size advertises, because Section II would force the mandatory-fee-inclusive number to be the most prominent number in every listing, nationwide, not just in the four plaintiff states.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley count is the part worth watching for anyone outside housing. Count XI treats ordinary advertising misstatements as pretexting under 15 U.S.C. section 6821 because the consumer handed over a card or bank account number in reliance on them. Almost every consumer-facing business that takes an online payment makes representations before the payment screen. That is a broad theory riding on a narrow statute written for a different problem.

The Consumer Review Fairness Act count is the second structural point. The provisions here were not buried in the lease; the complaint places them in goodwill documents, the credit agreement, the early-termination waiver, the relocation payment. Count X treats each as a form contract. Read that way, the statute reaches the settlement paperwork a company hands a complaining customer, which is exactly where a nondisparagement clause does the most work.

One qualifier belongs on the whole story. The FTC's release says, in its own words, that "The complaint alleges that the majority of the conduct occurred under prior management, and that new management has moved to remedy the issues." Findings paragraph 3 of the order records that the defendants neither admit nor deny the allegations except for jurisdiction and the bankruptcy-related stipulations in Sections IX.B and IX.C. Nothing in the record is a finding of liability by the court.

How This Affects You

Nothing in the proposed order is binding on anyone while it sits unsigned. The FTC's own release states that "Stipulated final injunctions/orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the District Court judge," and as of November 7, 2026 the FTC's case page lists the matter as Pending with no entry recorded.

There is nothing to apply for, so there is no place in a queue to hold. What the order does do is put the renter list in the government's hands. Section X.A bars the defendants from "failing to provide sufficient customer information to enable the Commission to efficiently administer consumer redress," gives a Commission representative 14 days' turnaround on any written request for redress information, and records that "Defendants represent that they have provided this redress information to the Commission."

That is the mechanism behind the FTC's general practice of mailing payments without a claim form. It is not a guarantee that this matter will run that way. The agency's own guidance runs both ways: most of its cases do not require a claim, but "If we do not have all the information we need to send refunds, we may request that consumers file a claim," and a claims window can carry a deadline.

So the useful steps are unglamorous. Make sure a former landlord and the US Postal Service have a current forwarding address, keep your own lease, ledger and move-out statement, and check ftc.gov/refunds rather than waiting to be contacted. Do not give money or identifying data to a third party offering to secure a payout.

Renters generally are not limited to whatever a federal settlement delivers. State deposit statutes carry their own remedies for a landlord who misses the itemization deadline or withholds wrongfully, and those sit with the state courts rather than with the FTC. Arizona, for instance, allows recovery of twice the amount wrongfully withheld under A.R.S. section 33-1321(E) when the landlord fails to comply with subsection D. Which clock and which remedy apply turns on your state and your lease, so a tenant lawyer or a state consumer-protection office is the right place to test a specific set of facts.

If you are shopping for a rental right now, the practical lesson from paragraph 37 is that an advertised monthly rent may not be the monthly cost. Ask for the full recurring monthly figure including every mandatory add-on, in writing, before paying an application or holding fee, which is the point at which the complaint says the real number first appeared.

This is general legal information, not legal advice. It covers a federal enforcement action in the Northern District of Georgia and consumer-protection claims by Arizona, Colorado, Indiana and Utah, and reflects primary sources verified on November 7, 2026. Laws change, this proceeding is pending and no court has entered the order, so consult a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction about your specific situation.

Related articles

• Landlord-tenant laws by state, including deposits and notice
• Indiana landlord-tenant rules for 2026
• Colorado deposit, notice and tenant-rights rules
• What to do after a scam, and how to report it
• Click-to-cancel laws and state auto-renewal rules

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Last updated: 2026-11-07. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-11-07.

Frequently Asked Questions

Am I getting a refund from the Progress Residential settlement?

There is no refund program for this matter as of November 7, 2026. The FTC's November 6 release says the $48.5 million will be used for consumer redress but announces no claims process, eligibility rule, amount or date, and Section IX.E of the proposed order says only that the money may fund a consumer-relief fund.

Is there a Progress Residential settlement claim form?

No. No claim form, portal or administrator has been announced for this case. Any site asking you to file a Progress Residential claim or pay a fee is not running an FTC redress program.

When would Progress Residential refunds be paid?

No date exists. The order's payment schedule does not even begin until a judge enters it, then runs $4.5 million within 10 days of entry and eleven payments of $4 million at 30-day intervals through 330 days after that first payment. Separately, the FTC says its goal is to send payments within 6 months of receiving the data and money needed for a distribution.

Has a judge approved the Progress Residential settlement?

Not as of November 7, 2026. The filed stipulated order's judicial signature line is blank and the FTC's case page for file 2423073 lists the matter as Pending. The FTC says stipulated orders have the force of law when approved and signed by the district judge.

Do I have to live in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana or Utah to be covered?

The four states are co-plaintiffs, but the FTC's claims and the order's injunctive terms are not limited to them. The order defines Property as any single-family residential property located in the United States that the defendants own, offer for rent or manage, and paragraph 6 of the complaint puts the portfolio at over 90,000 homes in 17 states.

What fees did the complaint say Progress hid?

Paragraph 29 names mandatory monthly charges including a smart home fee of $17 to $30, a utility management fee of $7.95 to $9.99, an air filter fee of $9.99, a pool fee of $100 to $175, a septic tank fee of $40, a resident benefit package fee of $15, a landscaping fee of $35 to $120 and a pest control fee of $10.

Does this settlement void the nondisparagement clause in my Progress agreement?

The Consumer Review Fairness Act, not this order, is what makes such a provision void. Under 15 U.S.C. section 45b(b)(1), as the complaint recites at paragraph 212, a form-contract term restricting a consumer's reviews has been void since March 14, 2017. Section V of the proposed order would separately bar the companies from offering or enforcing one.

Can Progress still take money from a security deposit for normal wear and tear?

State deposit law already governs that, and Section III of the proposed order would bar withholding for normal wear and tear, for conditions that existed when the renter moved in, for inspection costs and for capital improvements or upgrade replacements. None of that is in force until a judge signs the order.

Where should I watch for a real FTC redress announcement in this case?

The FTC's refunds page at ftc.gov/refunds and the FTC case page for Progress Residential, file number 2423073. A genuine FTC refund never requires you to pay a fee or to provide sensitive information.