JD Home Rentals keeps suing Fresno. Is it trying to undermine code enforcement?

JD Home Rentals — a company long-criticized by tenants’ rights advocates — has launched a flurry of lawsuits against the city of Fresno in an attempt to have various code enforcement citations voided by a judge.

JD’s related business entities have filed at least seven lawsuits against the city this year in Fresno County Superior Court. They are challenging fines — most worth $250 — issued against them in recent years for various alleged violations found mostly at their south Fresno properties.

Court documents show a code enforcement officer reported water leaking through a hole in the laundry room ceiling at one JD apartment property in May 2025. Six months prior, another officer reported a crumbling garage foundation at a JD-owned house. One property mentioned in court documents was fire-damaged and observed in a completely blighted state.

Bryce Hovannisian, a company manager, and Ryan Porte, the company’s attorney in the suits filed this year, did not respond to The Bee’s multiple requests for comment for this story.

The company’s complaints say it shouldn’t have to pay the citations because, in some instances, the suits contend officers conducted property inspections without first obtaining consent. In other instances, the suits contend that city code enforcement officers broke promises they had made to continuously grant JD more time to correct violations as long as the company was making progress.

The company filed the lawsuits after the city’s independent appeal hearings upheld each penalty.

“We’ve seen JD (Home Rentals) and their representatives go to great lengths to delay any proceedings that would allow tenants to receive some semblance of justice and safe living conditions,” Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz told The Bee.

Tenant advocate ‘not impressed’ with JD’s arguments against city

JD, which is owned by the Hovannisian family, operates through multiple business entities registered in California, including BDHOV L.P., LEHOV L.P. and JHS Family L.P., among others. Controlling thousands of units, it is one of Fresno’s largest landlords and has become known for its legal problems related to accusations of substandard housing conditions.

More than 100 tenants sued JD in 1997 alleging infestations, repair refusals and unjust evictions. The company in 2021 settled a class action tenant suit filed in 2014 that accused JD of allowing dangerous living conditions. Today, its properties remain a focus of Fresno’s Anti-Slum Enforcement Team, according to a city report from last month.

Leah Simon-Weisburg, a tenants’ rights attorney who helped launch the 2014 class action suit, told The Bee that she believes JD’s recent suits look like an attempt to frustrate the code enforcement by making it expensive to monitor its properties.

“The disappointing part of this is that the whole reason the (2014) case was originally filed against them was that they had turned the entire code enforcement department into their management company,” she said of JD. "The pattern that was observed is that they never made repairs unless the city called.”

Simon-Weisburg said she is “not impressed” with JD’s arguments against the city. But if the company wins its current suits, it could “undermine” processes intended to make housing safe, she said.

Landlord alleges unauthorized inspections, broken promises by Fresno officers

JD has beaten the city in a case similar to those recently filed. Last year, it alleged a code enforcement officer broke Fresno law when he accessed a JD property in south Tower — where he had previously reported serious violations — without consent or a warrant.

A Fresno County judge agreed in January and voided the city’s citation. The decision prompted the City Council to change local law, so officers can access parts of private properties considered public, such as driveways or porches, for code enforcement without obtaining warrants or consent.

The company is arguing the same in several of the suits it’s filed against the city this year. The inspections it is disputing took place before the city bolstered its officers’ inspection powers.

JD is also arguing in some of this year’s cases that officers broke promises the company had relied on. In a case involving a house near Highway 180 and Fresno Street, where an officer cited the company for a crumbling garage foundation and deteriorated weather protection, JD says the weather and the city’s own building requirements delayed the work.

In August 2024, the officer on the case “promised that as long as the property is making repairs to some of the violations, he can extend the deadline to allow additional time for remaining repairs,” JD says in that complaint.

In December, the officer determined the company had made no progress on remaining violations and ignored its request for a third extension, according to court documents. He issued a citation in January 2025, and the violations have since been corrected, according to court documents.

In his decision against JD’s appeal, the city’s independent hearing officer noted that extensions are not required and are a “courtesy.”

Janz told The Bee that code enforcement officers do not have the authority to “make promises and bind the city in terms of the municipal code.”

This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 4:32 PM.

Erik Galicia

The Fresno Bee

Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert.