Hello,
After a long battle in housing court my brother was awarded Rights to Succession for my rent stabilized apartment. It took about a year after the housing court judgment for the landlord to come through and actually give him a lease in his name. When the renewal lease took place the LL required that we transfer the security deposit to my brother, as opposed to refunding it to me, and then receiving a new deposit from my brother. This sounded okay so we did it this way.
I lived in that apartment since 1995 and the landlord has held my security deposit the whole time. For the first couple of years of my lease, the landlord would send annual statements about the security deposit and the interest that it had accrued that given year. He stopped sending such statements about 1999. I never really thought about it until now.
It's written in my lease, this deposit was supposed to be held in a separate account and accrue interest. The landlord is required to refund this interest (minus 1% for admin costs) to me when I vacate.
So my question is this... How can I get my landlord to refund the interest that has been accumulating over the past 16 years? I estimate the current total to be something around $500-750 in total. I have moved out completely and transferred the security to my brother's new lease. The LL is a shifty guy and never returns security deposits, let alone interest on them, so I know if we don't act now, we will never see any of that money.
How can I demand this interest from him? Is there a time limit within which he needs to refund the interest amount? And if he refuses-which I think he will--what recourse do I have?
Basically, I don't want him to claim that we must wait until my brother moves out to receive said interest. This will never happen. And it bothers me that he gets to keep this money--this guy is a compete lying cheating scammer who harassed me and my family for over 3 years.
I know it's a bit complicated, so if I left out any important details, please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
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