I read over the Forum Guidelines but I’m not entirely sure which forum I should be posting to so I decided to post here; i.e. :
NYC General Discussion.
I’ve tried to make this post easy to read but I’m not entirely sure what information is relevant so my post may be longer than it should be.
I apologize for that.
I live on 14th street in Manhattan.
I am sharing with another person who owns the apartment.
The building is fairly old. It was renovated in the late 70’s or early 80’s but it was probably built before the 1st World War.
The building has 6 floors and there are 5 apartments on each floor so there are about 30 apartments in the building.
I think this building is a “Co-Op”. My Landlord / Roommate claims there is a “Co-Op” board, he owns the apartment I am sharing with him and he pays monthly maintenance fees.
I am, in effect, his tenant.
There is no lease.
My Landlord / Roommate makes me move out for 24 hours at the end of each month in order to ensure I “Have no rights”.
Sometimes I have been continuously living in the apartment for a few days longer than 31 days.
This is a 1-bedroom apartment.
I have the bedroom and my Landlord / Roommate has the living room.
It is a railroad apartment with my bedroom at the end of the railroad.
The living room, excluding the kitchen & bathroom area, which my Landlord / Roommate is using is 2 to 3 times larger than the bedroom.
I moved in during April of 2015 so I’ve been living here for just over 2 years.
When I moved in I was paying $500 a month in rent.
About a month later my Landlord / Roommate raised the rent to $600 a month.
Last year he raised the rent to $625 a month.
He just talked to me and informed me that he will be raising the rent by about $150 a month.
He usually informs me a day or 2 before the end of the month and insists I pay the new rent at the beginning of the next month. He doesn’t give me any real notice of a rent increase.
I just found out from him that the maintenance fee he has been paying to the Co-Op Board was less than $950 a month.
He also says that the ConEd bill is about $100 a month.
This means that I have been paying about 70 % of the rental costs of this apartment. That seems to me to be both unfair and too high.
He says the Co-Op Board just raised his monthly maintenance to “About $1,250” but he can’t remember the exact amount and he says he will get back to me on that.
If I’m going to be paying $800 a month this seems too high given that the Monthly Maintenance and ConEd bill are about$1,300 or so a month.
My Landlord / Roommate insists that I pay him in cash but he does give me receipts for my monthly rent payments. We get them notarized.
I pay my rent promptly sometimes just before the end of the month, or on the 1st of the month or sometimes a day or so later than the 1st of the month. I have never been in arrears on the rent.
My roommate / landlord is ALWAYS late in getting me receipts. The last time he was 4 months late in getting me receipts for the rent.
I don’t have exclusive use of the bedroom.
There are 11 bureaus in my bedroom. My Landlord / Roommate is using 7 of them. I am using 2 of them and we are sharing 2. He has about half a dozen or so boxes of his stuff in my bedroom.
There are 3 closets in the apartment, 1 of which is in my bedroom. My Landlord / Roommate is using all the closets in the apartment. I got fed up so we are now sharing the closet in the bedroom and he is also using the other 2 closets.
When my Landlord /Roommate makes me move out for 24 hours at more or less the end of each month he uses that time to snoop around in my room. He makes up excuses such doing unnecessary repairs or painting in order to do so. I never asked him to paint my room or do these repairs.
Here are my questions :
1. Can he arbitrarily raise my rent by any amount at all or are there regulations regarding how much rent he can charge me ?
2. Does he have to give me any notice of when he is going to raise my rent or can he do it at any time whatsoever ?
3. Does making me move out for a 24-hour period at the end of each month deprive me of rights I might otherwise have as a tenant ? Does the fact that there have been periods when I have been living in the apartment for more than 31 days give me rights as a tenant that I might not otherwise have ?
4. Does the fact that I have been living in the apartment for more than 2 years give me any rights as a tenant ?
5. Can he just arbitrarily tell me to move out at any time or does he have to give me notice ? If he has to give me notice then how much notice does he have to give me ? I am very concerned about this as rent in New York is expensive, it is hard to find affordable places to live and, at the moment, although I have savings, I have no income.
5. That the part of the apartment my Landlord / Roommate is using for himself is at least 2 times larger than my bedroom have any bearing on the amount of rent I should be paying ?
6. That my Landlord / Roommate is storing a lot of stuff in my bedroom have any bearing on the rent I am paying ?
7. Can I ask him to move his stuff out of my bedroom ? He could easily reorganize his area in the living room to store all the stuff he’s got in my bedroom with little or no loss of usable space.
8. Does he have the right to snoop around in my bedroom even though he is using the excuse of doing unnecessary repairs and painting ?
Those are my questions. I do apologize for the length of this posting but I’m not exactly sure which details are relevant and which aren’t.
All the best & thank you for all your help … Joey