In his first major action as North Carolina Attorney General, Jeff Jackson has sued six large property management companies, accusing them of conspiring to keep rent prices above market rates.

If you rent an apartment in the Triangle, there’s a solid chance that Jeff Jackson and the federal government are accusing your landlord of inflating rental prices.

An amended complaint names six landlords as defendants in ongoing litigation that North Carolina and several other states, along with the federal government, began in August.

The companies being sued own or manage 70,000 units in North Carolina, including one-third of the apartments in the state's most populous cities.

The lawsuit against the landlords is part of an ongoing bipartisan case against RealPage, which began last August. RealPage is accused of exploiting landlords’ competitively sensitive information to create a pricing algorithm in violation of antitrust laws, resulting in renters paying inflated prices.