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Re: Update:No gas still....

Posted by DK on January 12, 1999 at 12:24:39:

In Reply to: Update:No gas still.... posted by Chris on January 12, 1999 at 10:08:40:

If the apartment is illegal, then you are not required to pay any rent at all. Whatever you have already paid is deemed a waiver and you are not entitled to have it returned to you. Technically, the apartment is "illegal" if there is no certificate of occupancy which authorizes residential occupancy of the space. You would have to show that the landlord rented the space to you with knowledge that you were going to occupy it as a residence. (What does the lease say, if there is one?)

If the apartment was rented to you for residential occupancy without a certificate of occupancy then you're home free in avoiding payment of rent! If you have a written lease with an attorney's fees clause in it, then the landlord will also have to pay your legal fees. Since the no rent defense is fairly technical, you would be well advised to have an experienced housing attorney represent you.


: I posted before concerning my situation of no gas but now things have taken a slight turn so i thought i would repost everything to give the whole story.We rented a loft
: ]apartment in Brooklyn in september (which we found through a broker for $1000). We are the first occupants of this building as an apartment
: The day before we moved in the landlord informed us that the gas (the apartment uses gas for water heat and stove) has not been hooked up but should be soon. We
: went through the first 3 weeks without any hot water, until the landlord installed a "temporary" hot 35gal. water heater. We made several calls to the landlords
: office asking when the gas will be hooked up and each time we got answers like they were waiting on the gas company, they were waiting for the city to inspect the pipes....
: He eventualy reduced our rent from 1,500 a month to 1,250 a month. The official heating period began on october 15 here in NYC, shortly after this date, around the 1rst of november
: I made an official complaint to the Department of housing about not having any gas. The landlord eventually dropped off three small space heaters. Begining with November my
: roomate began not paying her half of the rent, I continued to pay my half of $625.00. On December 27 i made another complaint to the department of housing telling them that we
: still have no gas. I did not pay my January rent for the first time. On January 8th we recieved a call from our landlord who said that he had not recieved my roommates rent for
: the past 3 months and now mine for this month and wanted to know when he would recieve it. My roommate told him that we would pay him when we go heat, He then told us
: that he was going to evict us. He also said that if we keep calling the Department of Housing that we were going to get everyone kicked out because the space is a commercial
: space not residential. This was the first time we had ever been told this. What i need to know is what is our rights in this situation and what steps we should take. Also is it
: possible to get the brokers fee back sense they rented us an illegal aprtment.

: thank you,
: Chris Brixey

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