Do reasonable leases exist in NY?

[ammons]

My wife and I are moving from Wisconsin to Westchester County, and have found a rent-stabilized apartment that we like. The problem is that the lease we received a couple of days ago is ridiculous. It doesn't spell out simple things like who pays what utilities, and it's full of outrageous clauses: the landlord can sign documents in our name, the landlord can not be held liable for negligence or crimes, the landlord can deduct an (unspecified) administrative fee from our security deposit, the landlord doesn't have to make the apartment available to us from the start of the lease, and on and on. The landlord (who apparently rents thousands of apartments with such leases) is perfectly willing to make verbal assurances to satisfy us, but unwilling to give us anything in writing.

I'm sure that most of these clauses are illegal and void, but we still don't want to sign this junk. But, we also don't want to reject this lease if we're unlikely to find anything better. So here are my questions: is this a typical New York lease? Should we pin our hopes on finding a reasonable lease that spells out a normal tenant-landlord relationship, or is that a fool's errand?

Thanks.
--glenn

[Chimera]

No, that is not typical for a "New York Lease". Leases are legal contracts, and New York is governed by laws like any other state, none of which allow landlords to sign documents for their tenants due to a clause in a lease.

[NYCkid]

You can do a bit of research by reading on the DHCR webside, but i believe that a lease cannot force you to waive your rights under rent stabilization law.

The unspecified administrative fee from your security deposit is 1% that comes out of the interest from the bank account where he is required to put your deposit. The rest of the interest is yours.

If your apartment is rent stabilized, you are entitled to all of those rights. You should read up on them.

You should also look at a map and realize that Westchester county is not in NYC and therefore you should probably have posted this on another message board within tenant.net since this is a NYC board. I am not saying this to be rude, but rent stabilization law in NYC is slightly different than the the law in Westchester.

[HAJ77]

Are you sure it's rent regulated? From what I know, regulated apartments in Westchester are almost non-existant and those that exist are in a few specific areas.

Considering all that this LL is trying to pull, it might pay to look for a new apartment, I assume you haven't moved in since you're asking about the lease.

Also, it might be a wise idea not to volunteer that you're not from the NY area when looking for an apartment, many LLs will assume you're naive and try to take advantage of you.