Was threatened lockout with no evict. notice

[Anonny27]

I have been renting a room in a 2 bdrm apt for a year and a half, month to month after the inital 6-month lease. The Realty company that I am renting from termed this apartment student housing, and therefore rented out each room in the apt separately with separate leases for each tenant, which means I am not responsible for paying the rent of the other room, which was recently vacated. However, the landlord now wants to rent out this whole apt to an individual or family who will be responsible for the whole rent. A month and a half ago, the LL asked me on the phone if I would be willing to move to a room in another apt in the building. I said I would think about it, and she was to call me back. I later told the super that I did not want to move, because the room was smaller but the price the same. The LL never called me back. A couple of days ago, the super told me the LL wanted me to call her. When I did, she threatened me by saying I had two choices: move upstairs to the smaller room or be responsible for the entire rent of this apartment. Otherwise, she was going to have me locked out. I told her she had to give me 30 days written notice before she could lock me out, but she claims that we had an "oral agreement" 60 days ago that I would move upstairs. Not only is this inaccurate, but I'm pretty sure an oral agreement is not worth anything in this case anyway! But now I'm scared to leave the house in case she locks me out while I'm gone! What can I do?

[mjr203]

Have available to yourself documentation (previous lease, mail (gas/phone bill etc)). If she locks you out, proceed immediately to the local police precinct and report the illegal lockout.

Procedures to read are contained in Tenantnet's page: http://tenant.net/Rights/illevict/illevict.html

Physical obstruction of a tenant returning to their apartment with police after an illegal lockout is an arrestable misdemeanor offense.

-pointer

p.s. I do not completely understand the nature of your rental agreement. But you are correct that if this is a non-regulated situation, the LL must give you 30 full days written notice. "In New York City, the landlord must serve the tenant with a written termination giving 30 days notice before the expiration of the term. The notice must state that the landlord elects to terminate the tenancy and that refusal to vacate will lead to eviction proceedings (Real Property Law §232-a)."

[Cranky Tenant]

Originally posted by Anonny27:
I told her she had to give me 30 days written notice before she could lock me out, but she claims that we had an "oral agreement" 60 days ago that

Actually the LL has to give you 30 days notice before they can bring eviction proceedings. Then the LL can only evict you if the court finds in the LL's favor, at which point a marshall would do the eviction. The LL can't simply lock you out without due process.

Oral agreements don't stand up in Housing Court .