For the first time the office, in addition to imposing fines, is seeking to seize the landlords' properties, using a statute in the state code normally applied to antitrust cases. Authorities allege that the landlords sought to circumvent local renter-protection laws by locking tenants out of their buildings, failing to make timely repairs, making false and misleading representations that the building was being condemned and turning off utilities. At the low-rent Huntington Hotel downtown, electricity and water were turned off for extended periods, according to court documents, and tenants were threatened with violence or the removal of their property unless...