JUDGES BOUNCE LOFT-Y GOUGER

[Cranky Tenant]

From The New York Post

JUDGES BOUNCE
LOFT-Y GOUGER
By DAREH GREGORIAN
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September 21, 2002 -- A photo gallery owner is losing his picture-perfect deal on his sprawling $550-a-month TriBeCa loft because he overcharged a subtenant.

In a landmark decision, the state Appellate Division ruled BLF Realty can give Steven Kasher the boot from his 2,300- square-foot apartment because he engaged in "profiteering" - charging a family $1,700 a month for using part of the pad.

Kasher, who has lived in the top-floor loft at 54 N. Moore St. since 1977, said he hadn't seen the decision and refused to comment.

BLF Realty's lawyer, Susan Baumel-Cornicello, said the five-judge panel "did the right thing."

Kasher "was making a fortune off this [subletter] and living rent-free at the same time," she said.

Kasher, an author and gallery owner, took in Susanna Dent as a subtenant back in 1990, renting her two-thirds of the apartment - about 1,500 square feet - for $1,600 a month, the judges said.

Kasher, meanwhile, was paying $551.22 for the entire space.

Soon after, Dent got married, and husband Howard Patlis and their child soon moved into the loft, too. Kasher, meanwhile, lived in the 800-foot remainder of the apartment with his wife and their child, court papers said.

Kasher did a fair amount of work for his tenants, whose rent he upped to $1,700 a month by 1992. He had their section of the apartment partitioned off and outfitted with a separate entrance, kitchen and bathroom.

Court papers say the subtenants moved out in 1996. Kasher's landlord found out about it, and went to court to have him evicted for rent gouging.

Kasher won several lower court victories, claiming Dent and Patlis were actually roommates and he could charge whatever he wanted.

The Appellate Division ruling, however, noted that a 1992 inspection showed the loft "was configured into two separate units."

The judges said Kasher "charged the subtenants more than triple the lawful rent" and should be evicted. The most a tenant can charge a subtenant is 10 percent over the rent, and a tenant can only charge a roommate for their share of the rent.

The ruling is unprecedented, because it applies rent-stabilization regulations - which allow evictions for price gouging - to the city's loft law, which doesn't mention evictions.

[consigliere]

You can read the full text of the decision of the Appellate Division, First Departent, and the full text of an article from the September 20th New York Law Journal in another message of mine, Loft Tenant Evicted For Overcharging.