What a Lease Agreement Is Supposed to Do

Before you sign a lease on an older home, the law says you are entitled to know the truth. Not a sanitized truth. The whole truth: whether the walls were ever tested for lead, whether there are known hazards, where those hazards are located, and what condition the painted surfaces are in. You’re supposed to receive a federal pamphlet. Your landlord’s agent is supposed to sign a document confirming they told you all of this. These are not suggestions. They are federal law, codified because of what lead does to human beings.

Lead is a neurotoxin. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children. It crosses the blood-brain barrier. In young children, it disrupts the development of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that governs impulse control, planning, and emotional regulation. The damage is permanent. It cannot be undone after the fact with a settlement check or a signed consent agreement. The CDC, the EPA, and decades of medical research are in unanimous agreement on this: the only acceptable intervention is prevention. Keep the lead away from children in the first place.

The federal lead disclosure rules exist because of this reality. Congress passed the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act in 1992, thirty-three years before this consent order was filed, because the science was already conclusive. The law does not ask landlords to test every wall. It asks them to share what they already know and to make sure tenants are informed before they sign their names and move their children in.

Evernest Holdings managed properties in at least five southern states. Families signed leases on pre-1978 homes without receiving the pamphlet titled “Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home.” They signed leases without a lead warning statement in the contract. They signed leases without the agent certifying that the lessor had been informed of their legal obligations. Multiple properties had missing lessor disclosure statements. Multiple properties had missing tenant acknowledgment signatures. One lease was executed without a single required disclosure element in place.

The people who moved into 937 Phillips Street in Nashville, 1443 Vesta Avenue in East Point, Georgia, 55 Hanover Circle in Birmingham, 1015 Piedmont Avenue in Atlanta, 526 Belfast Drive in Gastonia, North Carolina, and 11230 Kapok Avenue in Port Richey, Florida were not told what they had a legal right to be told. Whether or not lead paint was present and actively hazardous is a separate question the record does not answer. But the mechanism designed to protect them was deliberately or negligently bypassed. And then, when the EPA showed up for its inspection, the records Evernest was legally required to maintain for three years were not available at the office. They were submitted in six separate batches over eight months.

Evernest also sent uncertified workers to renovate pre-1978 homes. The renovation rules exist because sanding, scraping, or cutting into surfaces coated with lead paint generates airborne lead dust. A certified renovator knows how to contain it, clean it up, and document that the work area was properly sealed. An uncertified crew does not. The three properties where Evernest performed uncertified renovations between December 2021 and December 2022 included at least one that was also on the leasing violations list. The same tenants who were not properly warned were also potentially exposed to renovation-generated lead contamination.

The penalty for all of this was $18,400. Evernest said even that was too much to pay at once.

Straight From the Document: What the EPA Said on the Record

These are verbatim excerpts from the Consent Agreement and Final Order, Docket No. TSCA-04-2025-6103(b), filed with the EPA Region 4 Regional Hearing Clerk on April 23, 2025. No paraphrasing. No interpretation added. The document speaks for itself.

“At the time of the inspection, and subsequent to the inspection, Respondent was unable to provide records to the inspector documenting that prior to entering into the leases referenced in Paragraph 34, Respondent had: [a] Provided the lessees with an EPA-approved lead hazard information pamphlet as required by 40 C.F.R. § 745.107(a)(1) for the properties listed in Paragraphs 34.b. and 34.f.” Docket No. TSCA-04-2025-6103(b), Paragraph 35(a)

• Evernest could not produce evidence that tenants at the East Point, Georgia and Port Richey, Florida properties ever received the federal pamphlet titled “Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home.” This pamphlet is the baseline minimum required by 30-year-old federal law. It could not be produced even after the inspector gave Evernest months to search its records.
• The inability to produce the record is not a technicality. Federal regulations required Evernest to retain compliance records for three years. The failure to retain records is itself a violation of 40 C.F.R. § 745.86, compounding the underlying disclosure failure.

“Based on the EPA’s review of Respondent’s records pertaining to its compliance with 40 C.F.R. Part 745, Subpart E, the EPA determined that Respondent had offered to perform and/or performed renovations at the following target housing locations (‘the Properties’), between December 2021 and December 2022 … At the time Respondent offered to perform and/or performed the renovations at the Properties, Respondent had not obtained ‘firm certification,’ as required by 40 C.F.R. §§ 745.81(a)(2)(ii) and 745.89(a)(1).” Docket No. TSCA-04-2025-6103(b), Paragraphs 36 and 38

• Evernest performed renovation work at pre-1978 homes without ever applying to the EPA for certification. The certification process exists specifically to ensure that anyone disturbing painted surfaces in older homes knows how to handle lead paint safely. Evernest skipped it entirely.
• The three properties where uncertified renovations occurred were 11230 Kapok Avenue (Port Richey, FL), 937 Phillips Street (Nashville, TN), and 330 Willford Street (Memphis, TN). At least one of those properties also appears in the leasing disclosure violation list, meaning tenants at that address were exposed to compounded risk: no disclosure and uncertified renovation work.

“Based on Respondent’s written certification to the EPA that payment of the entire penalty within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date of this CAFO would result in financial hardship, the EPA has agreed that the civil penalty may be paid in six (6) installments.” Docket No. TSCA-04-2025-6103(b), Paragraph 46

• Evernest, a multi-state property management company operating in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, formally certified in writing that paying $18,400 in one payment would cause financial hardship. The EPA accepted this without published challenge.
• The installment plan adds $215.26 in interest to the total — meaning the full cost of this enforcement action, spread over six months, is $18,615.26. That figure covers six leasing violation properties, three uncertified renovation properties, and approximately two years of post-inspection record review.

“Respondent: (b) neither admits nor denies the factual allegations set forth in Section IV (Findings of Facts) of this CAFO; … (e) waives any right to contest the allegations set forth in Section V (Alleged Violations) of this CAFO; and (f) waives its rights to appeal the Final Order accompanying this CAFO.” Docket No. TSCA-04-2025-6103(b), Paragraph 42

• This is a standard consent agreement construction, but its plain meaning matters. Evernest refused to formally admit the facts the EPA documented but simultaneously gave up every legal avenue to challenge those documented facts or the penalty. In practice, this resolves the case without Evernest ever saying “we did this.”
• This structure also means no formal adjudication ever occurred. There are no adverse findings in a contested proceeding. The CAFO settles everything quietly. The tenants at those six properties never had an opportunity to testify, object, or present their own accounts to a hearing officer.

“This CAFO acknowledges that this CAFO constitutes an enforcement action for purposes of considering Respondent’s compliance history in any subsequent enforcement actions.” Docket No. TSCA-04-2025-6103(b), Paragraph 43(b)

• This clause is the most consequential long-term provision for tenants. If Evernest is ever caught violating lead disclosure rules again, this CAFO goes on the table as prior enforcement history. Prior history can increase penalty calculations under the TSCA penalty policy. The protection, however, only activates if there is a future inspection — which depends on EPA enforcement resources and priorities.

Who Pays the Real Price

Public Health

The lead disclosure rules are not bureaucratic box-checking. They are the last line of defense for people renting older homes they cannot inspect, test, or fully evaluate before signing. When those rules fail, the health consequences are direct and documented.

• Lead exposure causes irreversible neurological damage in children under six. Effects include reduced IQ, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and reduced impulse control. The CDC confirms there is no established safe blood lead level in children — any exposure carries measurable risk.
• Pregnant women exposed to lead face elevated risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature birth. Fetuses can absorb lead transferred from maternal blood, potentially causing developmental delays before birth.
• The six properties on the violation list span five states across the Southeast. Southern renters are disproportionately low-income and are less likely to have access to private lead testing services or the ability to break a lease if hazards are discovered post-signing.
• Uncertified renovation work, the kind Evernest performed at three pre-1978 properties between December 2021 and December 2022, actively generates lead dust. EPA studies document that improper renovation techniques can increase lead dust levels in a home by orders of magnitude in a matter of hours. Once that dust settles into carpets, floors, and HVAC systems, it persists.
• The 330 Willford Street property in Memphis, Tennessee appears only in the renovation violations list and not in the leasing violations list. That means this is a property the CAFO record does not connect to any disclosure, leaving its rental status and tenant exposure history outside the scope of this document.

Economic Inequality

Lead paint violations concentrate in the rental market, which disproportionately serves people who cannot afford homeownership. The burden of Evernest’s failures lands heaviest on the people who can least absorb it.

• Renters in pre-1978 housing are statistically more likely to be Black and Latino families, who already face higher rates of lead poisoning from decades of residential segregation that concentrated them in older urban housing stock. The communities Evernest operates in across the Southeast mirror this pattern.
• A tenant who is never told about lead hazards cannot take protective measures: covering peeling paint, increasing hand-washing, running water before use, keeping children away from high-risk surfaces. Without the disclosure, they have no information on which to act.
• Lead-poisoned children require elevated medical care, special education services, and long-term behavioral health support. These costs fall on families and public systems, not on the company that failed to disclose the hazard. The $18,400 penalty does not include a single dollar of remediation for affected families.
• Evernest’s request for a payment installment plan, granted on the basis of a self-certified financial hardship claim, further illustrates the asymmetry. The company can certify hardship to delay a regulatory penalty. Tenants cannot certify anything to delay neurological damage.
• The EPA penalty calculation under TSCA explicitly accounts for economic benefit: if a violator saved money by skipping compliance, that savings is supposed to factor into the fine. The record does not detail what Evernest saved by not training certified renovators, not maintaining records, and not printing and distributing disclosure pamphlets. Whatever that figure is, it is not reflected in an $18,400 settlement.

The Price the EPA Assigned to These Violations

Who to Contact and How to Protect Yourself

Evernest Holdings is a multi-state property management company based in Birmingham, Alabama. The individuals named in the certificate of service are the points of contact on record for this enforcement action.

• Duncan Murphy — Director of Compliance, Evernest Holdings, LLC. The compliance officer is the person responsible for ensuring the company follows the exact regulations it was just fined for violating. That is the accountability structure currently in place.
• Monica K. Gilroy, Esq. — Managing Partner, The Gilroy Firm LLC. Evernest’s legal counsel of record for this proceeding.
• The CAFO is a public document. It is on file with the EPA Region 4 Regional Hearing Clerk and is available for anyone to review. Evernest explicitly agreed, in writing, that this document contains no confidential business information.

Watchlist: Agencies That Can Act

• EPA Region 4: The agency that brought this case. Contact R4_Regional_Hearing_Clerk@epa.gov or reach the case attorney Oyepero F. Olowu at olowu.oyepero@epa.gov if you have evidence of additional violations. The CAFO explicitly notes this enforcement action goes on Evernest’s compliance history for future proceedings.
• HUD Office of Fair Housing: Lead paint disclosure failures in rental housing are a fair housing issue. HUD enforces the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act alongside the EPA and can investigate patterns of non-disclosure that disproportionately harm protected classes.
• State Housing Agencies (GA, AL, FL, NC, TN): Each state has its own housing authority that licenses property managers and landlords. A federal CAFO can be the basis for a complaint to state licensing boards, which can revoke or suspend operating licenses.
• State Attorneys General (multi-state): Consumer protection divisions in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee each have authority to investigate companies operating across their state that fail to disclose material housing hazards. A multi-state company with documented failures in five states is a multi-state AG problem.
• CFPB: If Evernest’s rental agreements include financing arrangements or credit checks, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has jurisdiction over deceptive or abusive practices connected to those financial products.

What You Can Do Right Now

• If you rent from Evernest Holdings: Pull out your lease. Check whether it contains a Lead Warning Statement, a lessor disclosure of known lead paint, and your signature confirming you received the “Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home” pamphlet. If any of those are missing, you have the legal right to request them now and file a complaint with EPA Region 4.
• Request a lead inspection: Tenants in pre-1978 housing can request a lead inspection or risk assessment. Some states fund this through their health departments at no cost. In Georgia and Tennessee, contact your county health department. In Florida, contact the Florida Department of Health’s lead poisoning prevention program.
• Document everything: If you find peeling paint, damaged surfaces, or evidence of recent renovation in your pre-1978 rental, photograph it with timestamps. Keep those photos outside your phone’s cloud backup in case of a device reset or account issue.
• Connect with tenant organizers: Tenant unions in Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Tampa have active lead paint and rental conditions campaigns. A single-tenant complaint is easy to dismiss. Organized tenant groups with pattern-of-practice documentation are significantly harder to ignore at both the regulatory and legislative level.
• Push for stronger penalties: $18,400 for multi-property, multi-year lead disclosure failures is not a deterrent. Contact your federal representatives and ask them to support increasing TSCA civil penalty caps, which were last substantially updated in 1990 and have lost significant real-dollar value to inflation.
• Share this investigation: Public pressure, regulatory scrutiny, and tenant organizing all become more effective when more people understand what happened and where. Forward this article to anyone renting in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, or Tennessee, particularly anyone in older housing managed by a large property management company.