New York's Department of Buildings fined Kushner Companies $210,000 for filing false documents about who lived in the properties it owned. The real estate firm is run by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law, who was CEO until he stepped down to join the White House as a senior adviser to the president. Jared Kushner, 37, is married to President Trump's daughter Ivanka. Regulators fined Kushner Companies after it repeatedly filed construction permit applications that claimed it housed no rent-regulated tenants in its properties. In reality, however, there were many such tenants. The Department of Buildings found 17 Kushner buildings across Manhattan and Brooklyn in which there were 42 rules violations between 2013 and 2016. "Protecting tenants is a key part of our mission to make construction safe for all New Yorkers, and we are determined to hold landlords accountable for the accuracy of their applications—no matter who they are," the department said in a statement sent to Newsweek. Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, told Newsweek in a statement that "no fines were assessed against the company today. "There were some violations issued for paperwork errors of the same type identified back in March and as we noted then, the company relied on third party consultants for the preparation of these forms and if in error they have been corrected or will be," Taylor said. "In no case did the company act in disregard of the safety of our tenants. We look forward to presenting the facts before an administrative law judge and until then no amount is due, if any." According to an Associated Press report from March, false documents helped Kushner to sell three buildings at a large profit because the company had dodged rules protecting rent-regulated tenants from being forced out of their homes. Disruptive construction work allegedly drove out rent-regulated tenants allowing higher-paying renters to move in in their place, which increased the value of the buildings and their attractiveness to investors. Authorities might have denied permission for construction work had they known rent-regulated tenants lived in the buildings. "It's bare-faced greed," Aaron Carr, founder of Housing Rights Initiative, a tenants' rights watchdog group that investigated Kushner's documents, told AP at the time. "The fact that the company was falsifying all these applications with the government shows a sordid attempt to avert accountability and get a rapid return on its investment." Before Kushner joined the White House, he was also the owner of the New York Observer but stepped down as publisher and sold his stake to his family's trust when he joined the White House.<doc-sep>New York City regulators have fined the Kushner family real estate company $210,000 for falsifying documents, The Associated Press reported Monday. The fine comes after an AP investigation in March that showed Kushner Cos. frequently filed false construction permits with New York City saying it didn’t have any rent-regulated tenants in the buildings it owned even though it had hundreds of them. ADVERTISEMENT New York City’s buildings department fined Kushner Cos. “for filing 42 false applications for construction on more than a dozen buildings,” the AP reported. The company, led at the time by White House adviser Jared Kushner Jared Corey KushnerThe Israel-Hamas ceasefire is holding — what's next? Eric Trump buys .2M home near father's golf club in Florida CDC's about-face on masks appears politically motivated to help a struggling Biden MORE, used the false paperwork to push out tenants, the AP reported earlier this year. Kushner's signature does not specifically appear on any of the documents, but he was the head of the business before becoming a top adviser to the president. Had the company disclosed the rent-regulated tenants, it would have prompted oversight of construction projects at the buildings, according to the AP. But because it didn't, there was no surveillance of construction crews, and tenants told the AP that there was extensive construction that they believed was an effort to harass them in to leaving the buildings. Kushner Cos. then sold at least four of its dozens of buildings and likely attracted higher-paying renters to the other building, according to the AP. Kushner Cos. said in a statement to the AP in March that “if mistakes or violations are identified, corrective action is taken immediately.” “Kushner would never deny any tenant their due-process rights,” the company said at the time.<doc-sep>The fine by the Department of Buildings came as a city official vowed to examine evidence of similar violations at three properties formerly owned by ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The dwindling number of rent-stabilized tenants in the Cohen properties were highlighted in an exclusive Daily News report.<doc-sep>
The real estate firm owned by the family of President Donald Trump's son in law and adviser Jared Kushner has been fined $210,000 by regulators in New York. The Department of Buildings said in a statement that Kushner Companies had 42 violations, including falsifying construction permits, at 17 buildings. To acquire construction permits in New York, developers or landlords are required to disclose whether buildings contain rent-regulated tenants. Dozens of times, Kushner Companies claimed buildings had no rent-regulated tenants when in fact there were hundreds, according to the Department of Buildings. Rent-regulated tenants pay below-market rates and are often harassed by landlords to vacate so new tenants can move in and pay higher rents. There’s no evidence of tenant harassment in this case. "Protecting tenants is a key part of our mission to make construction safe for all New Yorkers, and we are determined to hold landlords accountable for the accuracy of their applications -- no matter who they are," the department said in a statement. Kushner Companies didn't immediately respond to a message from ABC News requesting comment. The company told the Associated Press in a statement that it outsources the preparation of such documents to third parties that are reviewed by independent counsel, and "if mistakes or violations are identified, corrective action is taken immediately." "Kushner would never deny any tenant their due-process rights," the statement to the AP read, adding that the company "has renovated thousands of apartments and developments with minimal complaints over the past 30 years."