Three dates now govern this settlement, and only one of them is comfortably far off. September 1, 2026 is the deadline to opt out of the class or to file an objection. October 15, 2026 is the fairness hearing at which a federal judge in Nashville will decide whether to grant final approval. January 29, 2027 is the deadline to file a claim, and filing one is the only route to a payment.
A $359,925,000 fund and a seven-year class period
The court has preliminarily approved settlements reached with certain defendants in the multidistrict rental-software litigation. If those settlements receive final approval, they will establish a Settlement Fund of $359,925,000, and the settling defendants have also agreed to change their business practices in the multifamily rental housing market. Plaintiffs alleged that the defendants violated federal and state antitrust laws by conspiring to fix and inflate the price of multifamily rental housing across the United States and its territories. The settling defendants deny all allegations of wrongdoing, and the court has not decided who is right.
The class definition is where a renter finds out whether any of this applies. Per the court’s preliminary approval order, it covers all persons and entities in the United States and its territories who paid rent on at least one multifamily residential real estate lease, paid directly to an owner, manager or owner-operator, at a property subject to a license for RealPage’s Revenue Management Solutions, Lease Rent Options, YieldStar or AI Revenue Management at any time between October 18, 2018 and November 21, 2025. The court-authorized settlement website publishes that definition in full.
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Eligibility turns on the building, not the brand on the lease
Nothing in the class definition depends on a renter having heard of RealPage. The trigger is whether the property itself was subject to a license for the pricing software during the class period, which means a household could qualify without ever having seen the product named on a lease, a portal or a rent increase notice. The settling defendants are national apartment owners and management companies, listed in a footnote to the settlement notice, and several appear there as pairs of related corporate entities rather than as single companies.
That is why the administrator maintains a searchable list rather than asking renters to identify a software vendor. The official Property List lookup is the mechanism for checking a specific address, and eligibility for a payment runs to units that appear on it. A former tenant who has moved several times since 2018 may need to check more than one former address.
Submitting a claim is the only way to be eligible
The settlement website states the point without hedging: “Submitting a claim is the only way to be eligible to receive payment from Settlements.” It pairs that with an equally direct note about timing, “There will be no payments at this time,” and explains that if the court enters final approval, money will be distributed at a later date. Claims filed now are being banked against that distribution.
Two filing paths exist. A class member who received a mailed or emailed notice has a Notice ID and Confirmation Code and can file with those; anyone who did not receive a notice completes a full claim form instead, either online or by mail. The claim page handles both. The site also carries a warning in capital letters that no class member needs to sign up with, or pay, another attorney, company or individual in order to file, a caution aimed at the third-party filing services that attach themselves to large consumer settlements.
What doing nothing costs, and what opting out preserves
Inaction is not neutral here. A class member who does nothing is still bound by the settlements and still gives up the right to sue or continue to sue the settling defendants over the claims being released, but receives no money, because a claim is required. That combination is the reason the January 29, 2027 date matters more than the other two for most households.
Opting out reverses the trade. A renter who excludes themselves by September 1, 2026 keeps the right to bring their own case against the settling defendants but cannot receive money from these settlements. Objecting, which carries the same September 1 deadline, is a different act: an objector stays in the class and asks the court not to approve the terms. Class members who remain in also stay eligible to participate in future settlements in the litigation, which matters because these agreements cover certain defendants rather than every party named in the case. Attending the October 15 fairness hearing is optional.
No per-renter figure has been published
The official site publishes no estimate of what an individual claim will be worth, and there is no honest way to derive one. The fund is subject to final approval and to whatever the court awards in fees, costs and service payments, and the amount left is then divided according to the volume and content of valid claims. Any figure circulating as a per-renter payout is not coming from the administrator.
What is published is the paperwork. The site’s frequently asked questions run to 21 entries covering eligibility, the claim process, exclusion, objection and the hearing, alongside the full docket of court documents including the claim form and the long-form notice. The matter is captioned In re RealPage, Inc., Rental Software Antitrust Litigation (No. II), Case No. 3:23-md-03071, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division, and that is the only venue where the terms above can change.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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