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Failure to deliver apartment/possible shadiness?

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Failure to deliver apartment/possible shadiness?

Postby MK » Fri May 06, 2011 10:37 am

First, my apologies if this is in the wrong section - I'm new to the forum.

I signed a one year lease and gave a security deposit for a rent regulated studio apartment last month in Queens with a start date of May 1st. The next day the sweet old landlady called me and said it wouldn't be available then because the current tenants who still have an active lease changed their mind and weren't moving out yet. Also, that she never had official notice in writing that the current tenant was leaving before she signed a new lease for the apartment with me.

First of all, it seemed strange how quickly the apartment was no longer available almost immediately after signing the lease.

She said (verbally over the phone, unfortunately) that we'd cancel the current lease and draw up a new one with the new dates when the apartment was definitely available and I was moving in. At that point I wrote canceled on our copy of the lease and initialed/dated it.

I said that we could possibly work something out, but she has changed when the apartment would supposedly be available five times, ranging all the way up to mid-June to never (she can't make the tenants move and they have a valid current lease for the place that isn't up and is renewable). She has told me that she has been pressuring the current tenants and telling them they have to move out (is that legal?) and is letting them out of their current lease and she would rather have me in the apartment.

It's already cost me more money than it should have since I had to move quickly into a temporary place that I will have to move from again. Plus I don't want to be in the situation (again) where it's almost the end of the month and I suddenly have no place to live if I believe the landlady and once again the tenants don't move, but I have to.

I told her this wasn't working and I wanted to back out and get my security deposit back. Suddenly the sweet landlady wasn't so sweet. She's giving me problems and stalling, saying that we have a signed lease (!) still and she'd have to talk to her lawyers. This was about a week ago and I haven't heard back from her. I called her and she said that she's still waiting to hear from her lawyers.

There is a clause in the lease that the landlord isn't liable and the lease isn't cancellable if they don't deliver the apartment on time (which they obviously didn't) as long as they deliver it within a "reasonable period of time." From reading I understand that in the past these clauses have been deemed unconscionable, but I don't know what the current prevailing jurisprudence(?) is. The apartment still isn't available and the earliest it would be available would be the end of this month/sometime next month, but with the way things are going I doubt it will be available.

However, is my lease even valid at this point since the current tenants still have an active lease and haven't formally canceled it? And my lease is for an apartment that wasn't made available and may NEVER be available? I assume by what the landlady said that her verbal agreement to cancel the lease is non-binding, sadly.

On a humorous side note, I find it funny that the landlady would let the current tenants out of their lease because they're bad tenants, but may try to screw me over because she thinks I'd be a good tenant (and can charge me more money than the current tenant).

I'm still waiting to hear back from the landlady and it may still be resolved amicably, I just want to know what my rights and options are if she tries to force the issue or tries to keep my security deposit.

I feel like she's trying to stall until she knows for sure if the current tenant is leaving or not, which she won't know for weeks.
Last edited by MK on Fri May 06, 2011 1:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Postby TenantNet » Fri May 06, 2011 1:39 pm

It's impossible to sign a new lease for a rent controlled apartment.
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Postby MK » Fri May 06, 2011 1:49 pm

Sorry, Rent Regulated. Will fix OP.
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