Leaseholder moved. LL wants new lease. Don't want to sign

[liveinbrooklyn]

Hello-

So. We live in an illegal loft conversion. The leaseholder moved out. We are paying management the full rent. Management found out the leaseholder moved out. They want us to sign a new lease. But... they increased the rent $500.00. We have been living here for a long time (year+).

We don't want to sign a lease until maitanence in the apartment is taken care of.

We have paid through March 1st. We want to stay... but the management wants us to sign. I want to know.. .. what type of notice will they give us if they want to evict us? Do we have any rights?

[CityWifi]

I am not an expert in this, and will avoid giving you lease advice.

But if there is work to be done on the apartment, I would consider calling in the City to do a detailed inspection when the time is right. Of course, do NOT do this until you have reviewed your rights and have been given informed advice on this forum.

If you can be sure you won't legally be forced out of the apartment if the City finds out it's illegal, you can then take the steps you need to set things right. You may want to find out if you can withhold rent before doing that. I would also ask the forum what recourse you have if in fact an illegal conversion forces you to move. Must the LL pay for moving expenses? Can you stay if it's your choice? If not, how much time do you have to leave?

I once had to call in the City to inspect my place in Kew Gardens. I had been given a handy-dandy check list by a tenant's group for this purpose (based on the Housing Maintenance Code), and was very prepared to show the inspectors every detail I thought was not up to snuff. They even pay attention to things like broken or cracked bathroom tiles. The check list is very cool.

These efforts proved fruitful. The landlord had to do an enormous amount of work, including a complete repainting of the apartment with some wall repair. I must say, the illegal they hired off the books to paint the place did an exceptional job, and the apartment looked stunning when he was done. They had to take off an ugly collapsible gate that was locked and blocking a window to the fire escape, as well as other items.

When I was later in housing court, the judge noticed that not all of the items the inspectors cited the LL for were certified as being complete. She was actually able to look this up on her computer from the bench! I was shocked! As I recall, she did not make me pay overdue rent until all the items on the list were complete, and scheduled another hearing to follow up on the progress.

Best wishes. Again, I'm not an expert, so don't take what I say as gospel.

I look forward to learning with you about illegal conversions on this thread.

[lofter1]

Is the building covered under the Loft Law? If so your rights as an occupant are greatly expanded.

[snowstorm]

CityWifi - do you have a copy of that checklist or a way to get a similarly thorough copy?