Posted by Dawn on January 22, 2001 at 15:48:38:
In Reply to: Illegal Sublet posted by chris on January 19, 2001 at 10:19:18:
There are a couple of things established here. One, there is mention of an illegal sublet. The other was about the non payment -- which I'm still confused as to whether this was the original tenant's situation to take care of or the subtenant's? Did the landlord know you were living there? Was LL accepting payment about you from the tenant (10%) and was the tenant passing this cost on to you? If you were illegal, most probably not, which might explain the non-payment situation? Just curious and trying to figure out that part since it was kind of vague.
Now, were you paying the tenant direct or paying the landlord direct? This would make the difference on keeping the place or not. Otherwise, you have no rights -- and waiting to get evicted is not the best idea, although JJ thinks otherwise. His/her advice for you to stay there until you get evicted does not give you any rights to the place. At all. You will be there, but TEMPORARILY and with NO RIGHTS. And that's not what you want, from the way you write.
Normally, the landlord would go along the path of least resistance, and it would be easier for you both if he went along and gave you a lease but in this case, I think the landlord has the right to decide who he/she wants to rent to, and if LL decides it's not you, and you already don't have any rights to the place, then you're out of luck, I'm afraid. Tenant.net will correct me if I'm wrong or at least fill in my explanation more fully in legal terms.
The reason I mention about the business relationship between you and the LL is this:
I had come across an article that gave the situation as follows:
The person was subletting from the tenant of a rent-stabilized apt. in NYC. Let's call this the subleasor. The tenant decided to leave and not renew. LL wanted to take apartment but subleaser wanted to stay. how did the subleaser get to stay if subleaser's name was not on the lease? subleaser and LL went to court where it was proved that LL and subleaser had established a business relationship (in this case, a landlord-tenant relationship) because subleaser had check receipts showing that the subleaser had been paying rent directly to the LL with subleaser's signature on it and LL cashed them, implying that LL accepted the subleaser and couldn't claim subleasor was there not in his knowledge. LL lost the case and subleasor got the rent stabilized apartment with own lease with the standard increase.
I tried using the search function on tenant.net but it's not working for me at the moment. I will keep searching for the case. I remember a case with similar circumstances being featured in TimeOut New York. Again, I don't have the actual article or issue handy. I'm sorry about your situation -- good luck and tell us how it goes.
: What rights, if any, do I have?
: I am living in a rent stabilized apartment, but I am no the primary tenant, nor am I a legal subtenant. I have lived in the apartment for 13 months and the primary tenant isn't renewing the lease which ends this February.
: I notified the landlord of my interest in signing a vacant lease for the apartment and submitted an application at his office.
: To my dismay, notices and petitions were sent for non-payment, which were paid.
: I have a lawyer who is working on this, but what rights, if any, do I have, and what can the landlord do?
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