LL wants open house - I don't.

[sakurama]

My wife and I signed a three year lease on a new construction place. The lease unfortunately has a clause that if the owner were to sell the apartment we are only given 30 days to leave which we weren't aware of because we had a crappy lawyer read the lease.

Anyway, shortly after we'd moved in and basically finished the apartment (they ran out of money as typical overextended developers) they started hounding us to show the apartment because they were in foreclosure on another property and desperate to sell. They called every day several times a day demanding access to show the place. We eventually called another lawyer who told us that our lease does allow them access to show the place with "reasonable" notice but said that reasonable is very hard to define and our definition and theirs would probably be very far apart.

This led to us making it difficult for them (but allowing several showings) and them hassling us which culminated in a phone call from their lawyer threatening to take us to court to gain access whenever they wanted. I then suggested we were sick of the harassment and he should have the landlord terminate our lease and refund our deposit and then they could show the apartment whenever they liked. I then got a call from the lawyer saying they were very sorry and that we were valued tenents and didn't we want to buy the place? We weren't bothered again for 6 months.

Now it's starting again and they're demanding to have an open house. Both my wife and I work from home. I have clients come here. We have a 6 month old. An open house would mean I could not work and neither could my wife and with literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment as part of my job I am not about to risk opening the house to strangers.

So, does the landlord have that right? What are my rights? The landlord has already shown to be very dishonest when he tried to get us to buy the place and the place is a bit of a construction disaster which is why we wouldn't want to buy - shorts in the wiring, no insulation in the walls, $1000+ utility bills, leaking upper floor, constantly clogging drains. We're fine with this since we don't own it but we don't want to move yet. We just want to finish our lease and leave NY forever at the end of it but we're not ready...

Frustrated.

[Cranky Tenant]

Have you read the material on Landlord Access in the Tenant Reference forum?
http://www.tenant.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4837

Even if your lease states you must provide access to show the apartment that doesn't mean it has to be 24/7. Access is a negotiation and you're perfectly within your rights to limit the number of times and hours when you will make the apartment available. You're certainly entitled to be there when the apartment is shown and you can probably limit the number of people who can enter at one time.

[TenantNet]

And that they not take any photographs

[sakurama]

So it seems that an open house could be "unreasonable" provided I am willing to make time to show to individual prospective buyers when it's convenient to us. I just want to make sure that I have the right to say, "No open house, you can make an appointment but this is our house and we're not opening our doors to random strangers"

The whole idea of an open house just makes my skin crawl. We live in a very rough and transitional hood and have had several break in attempts so opening the doors just seems like we're making it easy to be cased.

And yes, I did read the section in the reference but it had no mention of open houses so I wasn't sure how they fit in.

Thanks.

[Cranky Tenant]

I just want to make sure that I have the right to say, "No open house, you can make an appointment but this is our house and we're not opening our doors to random strangers"

Exactly!

Maybe a year or two ago there was a story in the New York Times Real Estate section about the growing number of co-op buildings which were no longer allowing open houses due to concerns over security. They felt open houses provided an opportunity for thieves to case the building.

If you google "No Open House" you'll see a number of anecdotal stories bout the kinds of limits buildings as well as apartment dwellers have put on open houses. In the New York Times story Apartment Sellers Insist on Exposure, of the Feet prospective buyers are required to remove their shoes.

Another story in New York Magazine, entitledA Not-So-Open House mentions one building where, until recently, only two open houses per weekend were permitted and agents were required to provide a list of attendants. It's your home, just because your lease says you have to give access doesn't mean it's a revolving door.