The state is investigating CBZ Management, owner of the troubled Aurora apartments

The owners of several dilapidated apartment buildings in Aurora and Denver have faced a new threat in recent months: an investigation by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office into suspected violations of the state’s safe housing and consumer protection laws.

The state office served subpoenas to CBZ Management, one of its principal representatives, and several subsidiary companies in September, according to records obtained by The Denver Post. The subpoenas seek answers and records related to a number of CBZ’s practices, including how it advertises its properties and whether tenants receive the apartments they toured; how companies track and respond to maintenance requests and health code violations; how they manage security deposits; and how tenants rate, among other questions.

The CBZ Management buildings in Aurora have been the subject of extensive complaints from tenants and the municipality, and have recently drawn international attention to allegations that the properties were overrun by gangs.

The documents state that the attorney general’s office “has reason to believe that you may have information regarding potential misrepresentations, omissions, or unfair, deceptive or unconscionable acts or practices relating to the rental of rental housing units in Colorado, as well as potential violations.” from the home warranty statute … that risks harming a consumer, public health, or public safety.”

The companies were given a response deadline of October 25.

Housing guarantee is the official name of the state law that regulates housing conditions. State justice was changed in May to allow the Attorney General to investigate a “pattern or practice” of home warranty violations, or a violation that “raises an issue of public importance” — meaning this part of the investigation is likely the first of its kind in Colorado.

The citations indicate that the probe is not solely focused on the troubling properties of the CBZ Aurora. Requests were also sent to the companies that own its properties in Denver, Edgewater and Colorado Springs.

The attorney general’s office, which provided the subpoenas to The Post in response to a public records request, declined to comment. Zev Baumgarten, CBZ’s Colorado representative and the subject of a subpoena, did not return an interview request about CBZ’s practices and ongoing investigations into the company. Neither did the company’s owner, Shmaryahu Baumgarten, or its lawyer, Walter Slatkin.

Through its records request, The Post obtained a Sept. 23 email from Slatkin to a deputy attorney general in which Slatkin noted recent “media coverage of our client’s apartment buildings” and gang allegations on who made them CBZ.

“Things are not going well,” Slatkin wrote, expressing his frustrations with Aurora officials’ response to gang reports.

It’s unclear what sparked the investigation or how long the AG’s office has been investigating the companies. But two former CBZ tenants who lived at 1399 Vine St. in Denver between 2021 and 2023, told The Post they filed complaints and spoke with officials in the attorney general’s office over the past year.

Peter Svaldi and Victor Kurtz said their complaints accused CBZ of insurance fraud related to the company’s handling of security deposits. Both men moved out of the Vine Street complex in 2023 before their leases expired after going weeks without hot water. Svaldi also briefly withheld rent due to housing issues.

Under certain conditions, Colorado law allows tenants to break a lease because of housing conditions.

Instead of a security deposit, Svaldi and Kurtz said they were required to get insurance from a third-party company when they moved. When they each moved in early summer 2023, they said, CBZ filed claims with the insurance company for the losses. rent, and the insurance company chased the men for the money. They were simultaneously pursued by debt collectors sent by the CBZ, also looking for lost rent, both men claimed.

Kurtz said another tenant who filed a complaint listed him as a witness.