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Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

NYC Housing Court Practice/Procedures

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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:57 am

TenantNet wrote:Got to make this about 60% shorter. Can't read books.


Are you one person or several individuals posting from time to time? The same person posted to me on Sunday, that I sense, and thanks again. I really appreciate it.

Today I went to check the HPDOnline site again, the LL got hit with a long list of violations after the Inspection. The Date is the Inspection Date, but the List was not there yesterday.

Sooner or later he will find those, definitely before the Court Date scheduled at the beginning of December.

He practically moved in during weekdays, now he might move in also during the nights and weekends if he intends to fix all these before the Court Date.

The following is still there on the page, now on the very top of the long list.

§27-2107 adm code owner failed to file a valid registration statement with the department as required by adm code §27-2097 and is therefore subject to civil penalties, prohibited from certifying violations, and denied the right to recover possession of premises for nonpayment of rent until a valid registration statement is filed.

I wait for couple more weeks to see what happens, then I go and get a certified printout of all this from HPD.

In the meantime, I am reading more and more and try to be concise and focused as a one hour consultation with a lawyer is 400 - 500 dollars. The 500 dollars is from the lawyer who originally wrote the text of the Lease, whose name we mentioned above. He is very much around and active, but I am not sure that I am ready to spend 500 dollars on an hour with him ... and I don't even have the money, not yet.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:01 am

Adam Leitman Bailey is a landlord lawyer. He is NOT a tenant attorney. Why are you going to him?
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:10 pm

TenantNet wrote:Adam Leitman Bailey is a landlord lawyer. He is NOT a tenant attorney. Why are you going to him?


His assistant claimed that they also represent tenants from time to time.
I just wanted to ask a few questions about that long dense Lease but they should pay me 500 dollars per hour to point out a few inconsistencies not the other way round.

Even if I had 500 dollars cash at the moment, it would probably be money tossed out of the window (the LL could then pick it up from the garden and add littering to my tab).

So for now I will just keep watching the HPDOnline page.

Someone said that I do not need a certified printout from HPD because the Housing Court entered the violations.

How quickly can the LL fix the Registration issue? As soon as he notices, but it is now recorded that he lied on the Petition because he claimed that his registration is valid,
He did not think that they would check it so fast.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:41 pm

Yes, they rep tenants once in a while -- they do this to create the impression they rep both sides. But it's rare. Believe us, we know what he does... he reps landlords. We think you would be wasting your money.

As we said, the lease questions really don't impact your situation. You have a non-payment. But it seems you don't want our advice.

We told you how to get the case dismissed.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:57 pm

TenantNet wrote:Yes, they rep tenants once in a while -- they do this to create the impression they rep both sides. But it's rare. Believe us, we know what he does... he reps landlords. We think you would be wasting your money.

As we said, the lease questions really don't impact your situation. You have a non-payment. But it seems you don't want our advice.

We told you how to get the case dismissed.


No, you misunderstood. I was willing to ask him a few questions over the phone but I won't plop down five hundred dollars for one hour of his precious time, and in any case, I don't even have that kind of money at the moment. I wasted all my money on this apartment in the past five years, it is time to look ahead.

Yes, you steered me in the right direction, but the HPBOnline site states that he can properly register at some point. If and when he notices that sentence I quoted twice above, and he will notice it sooner or later because he will be looking for the Inspector's report.

Today is Election Day, I am not going to brave the subway or take a cab to Housing Court, but tomorrow I will go there with the printout page of that sentence plus the long list of Violations that he has yet to cure.

What then? You told me that the case could be dismissed if he did not register correctly in the past year or so, but they did not send me an automated letter that for now it is over, until the next round. I had to find that sentence myself, thanks for your help. I actually tried to open that page two days earlier but it kept bombing and it kept showing some error report code, instead of the entire page, as it came up yesterday and this morning. So I missed it last week. So did the LL, apparently. But at least the Inspector could add his own list. I could not even add any violations until it is registered properly (not that I want to at this point, the Inspector added more than enough).

Do I go to Housing Court, get the forms to File a Motion to Dismiss tomorrow or wait one more week? What if he correctly registers after I filed that Motion to Dismiss but before our upcoming court date early December?

As you can see, I have no idea at all about these issues, but many of you are quite experienced.

I want to listen, and I am listening, I just do not know what the next step is.

Taking such an expensive or even a less expensive lawyer to sit with me half a day in the courtroom is out of the question. I cannot afford that, not now, not ever, and the whole case is not worth that much.

I do not want to fight to keep the apartment forever, at such an inflated rent rate ... a few weeks now, they will be happy if they can rent it out for half price, there was not much interest in the house and its apartments during the Saturday and the Monday open house time intervals.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Tue Nov 08, 2016 7:36 pm

:albino:
TenantNet wrote:Yes, they rep tenants once in a while -- they do this to create the impression they rep both sides. But it's rare. Believe us, we know what he does... he reps landlords. We think you would be wasting your money.

As we said, the lease questions really don't impact your situation. You have a non-payment. But it seems you don't want our advice.

We told you how to get the case dismissed.


So it seems that I can request dismissal because the Petition should not have been submitted by the Landlord and accepted by Housing Court without valid HPD registration at that time but when should I do this and what forms do I need to fill out?

Tomorrow? or 48 hours before the next Court Date?
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 09, 2016 6:22 pm

TenantNet wrote:Yes, they rep tenants once in a while -- they do this to create the impression they rep both sides. But it's rare. Believe us, we know what he does... he reps landlords. We think you would be wasting your money.

As we said, the lease questions really don't impact your situation. You have a non-payment. But it seems you don't want our advice.

We told you how to get the case dismissed.


HPD appears to be irrelevant also, at least by the upcoming next court date.

The helper of the LL did a quickie fix of the gaping wall in the bathroom, he is going to do a final fix in a few days, they claim that they are observing the pipes ... which might be true. What's also true is that this gives them constant access to the apartment. But they opened walls in the apartments below too, so at least they made a big show and the faucet that they working on was on the Court Inspector's list. Now it is working fine.

They did a quickie fix according to the Inspector's list also. They "fixed" the fire escape related window which was not even on the Court List, but the Inspector found it, and put it on the HPDOnline site.

So the LL now found the list of violations on the HPDOnline site which means that he also found the issue of invalid registration. He is going to fix that too by the time of the court date, I am sure. He is still eager to talk me into settling, and of course, in the sense of repairs, he could see that I let him push me around. I told him that I do not want to go into further discussions with him without legal representation. He was practically gloating that I don't have a lawyer, or if I do, he said, I should give him my lawyer's phone number, otherwise he can tell me whatever he wants. I told him, then I can answer No Comment.

I don't want to settle anything with him at the moment, I simply need a little bit more time and preparation for the meeting in the Court.

What was I supposed to do? I am not going to physically fight in the doorway with several men in such a small house. Telling them, go away, wait it out until the court date just does not sound right.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Wed Nov 09, 2016 7:55 pm

Didn't we say you should not let these people in 24/7 without advance written notice? Why do you let them walk all over you? Read the access rules in the forum reference section.

BTW, we don't need or want every single detail of what happens every day.

Make a motion to have the case dismissed for lack of HPD registration.

But also figure out what you want and what you will settle for. Seems you haven't figured that out yet.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 09, 2016 8:53 pm

TenantNet wrote:Didn't we say you should not let these people in 24/7 without advance written notice? Why do you let them walk all over you? Read the access rules in the forum reference section.

BTW, we don't need or want every single detail of what happens every day.

Make a motion to have the case dismissed for lack of HPD registration.

But also figure out what you want and what you will settle for. Seems you haven't figured that out yet.


At the time when you told me that, we were already in the middle of what they could call emergency. They opened the walls of two apartments below to access the old rusting pipes then they opened the wall in my apartment also. Now they are fixing the open wall ... and they left it half fixed because they claim that they need to observe that the system now works without dripping anywhere.

I do not wish to be sued by two neighbors below for causing damage by not allowing emergency repairs and damaging any of their items or causing them inconvenience with delaying the repairs. Once they are in, they might as well repair other items on the Inspector's list.

You do not live in the real world if you tell me to physically push the worker away from the outlet for example. He does not even understand English.

As for all the details of my days: the volunteer lawyer at Housing Court told me that I can file the Motion and then the Judge might dismiss the case - or not. He might just adjourn it and in the meantime tell me to put the money in escrow with the court.

I may not even have the money by that time and if I have it, the last thing I want to do is put it in escrow to never see it again.

This apartment and toxic situation is not worth fighting for but I need more time so I am trying to stall while learning the rules of the Housing Court game.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Wed Nov 09, 2016 9:23 pm

If you want to delay, consider filing a motion to dismiss, then "short serve" it on the LL atty by sending it overnight mail, signature required, 2 days before the court date. Have four copies. One to serve on LL atty, one for yourself, one to file with the clerk and one courtesy copy for the LL atty who might claim he hasn't seen the one you mailed him.

Have it mailed by someone who is not a party and then have them sign and notarize an Affidavit of Service - attach that to the file copy. Get to court early and file the motion and affidavit with the court clerk (in Manhattan that's the 2nd floor). They will likely have you walk it up to the court. Don't be afraid to ask the clerks how to do things.

Chances are the LL atty will want extra time to respond to your motion, hence the will likely ask for an adjournment. Try to get it adjourned until January - that depends on the judge. Set up a stip where he will reply to your motion by a certain date specified in the stip.

After 30 years, we know how things work in the real world. As we said, do not let the LL walk all over you. You're asking for trouble - tenants are often their own worst enemies.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:22 pm

Thank You! That is exactly what I needed. Nevertheless, I must not lull myself into false sense of security.
I know now that he will frantically work on fixing the HPD registration issue.
So before I do all that, I will go to HPD and ask for a certified copy of the latest state of the registration because the web site update has a few days delay and he may have more current paperwork by that time.

I noticed today that the Judge is willing to help the Tenant with second adjournment ... but I would prefer not to spread out all the paperwork about my current financial situation, every detail included, and I definitely do not want to give them an escrow check for a huge amount. As of today, I could not even write a small check.

They did something crazy today in the apartment. In their haste to fix a class C Violation, they took off the metal grid from one of the garden windows.
That window leads to an open French balcony which extends towards the neighbouring apartment but it is in a different house! I do not even know who lives there.

Perhaps nobody at the moment and it might be an empty CoOp apartment that is listed for sale.

But right now anybody could come out of that apartment in the middle of the night, break the single layer window on my room and walk into this apartment!

So they made it unsafe.

I am going to meet with Fire Department tomorrow and will schedule a meeting with them to investigate this. This five story house has no fire escape.

One of the fire escape routes would be to go out through the door and up to the flat roof from this fifth floor apartment. The other is to the neighboring house, the French balcony. I know that they have fire escapes in the front but I am not sure about the back. I should have asked the Landlord but now I will ask the firemen if they come to visit. Originally this was supposed to be a Red Cross meeting but the Fire Department is also participating.

Can I use somewhere that the apartment is unsafe as of today as far as fixing the alleged fire escape route related violation?
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 09, 2016 10:34 pm

The LL is the Company, the Company address is the apartment where they live, here in the house.
The Attorney is the owner, main shareholder, same address here in the house. So I will send one to each of these two.

Both the Clerk's window and the Court room open at 9:30. I do not want to miss the date when we are called. Could I not file with the Clerk at the last minute the day before? The LL managed to manipulate the Court Clerk to ask us to the Court Attorney's desk earlier than they originally planned it. He would definitely try again if he would not see me in the room. I do not want to get stuck in the elevator!

If I luck out in the meantime, I would even love to send the single set of keys in a separate overnight package and notify the Judge that I voluntarily evicted myself from this situation. But I may not have a big enough check in the mail before the end of the month just yet.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:53 pm

TenantNet wrote:Got to make this about 60% shorter. Can't read books.


How about New York Law Journal articles?

Alan Leitman Bailey published a related article quite recently.

http://alblawfirm.com/attorney-staff/ad ... sentation/

Post-Lease Expiration NonPayment Proceedings, October 11, 2016

(First/top article in Published Articles right hand side)

There is no question that I owe the LL for "overstaying" after my Lease Expired (which was never signed by him to begin with, and the Extensions were not signed properly either, the very last one was not signed at all). the question is how much and when I have to pay up, when I have to leave ... at the moment I still could not pay up, nor could I pay one hour for consultation with an Alan Leitman Bailey sized lawyer.

Volunteer organizations do not seem to be of much help.

There is no guarantee that the Motion to Dismiss will convince the Judge to dismiss the case, and in any case, as soon as he manages to fix the registration with HPD, the LL can sue me again for back rent, so I am trying to explore my case from all angles.

I have approximately two more weeks before I EXPRESS Mail the Motion to Dismiss, as you suggested. One volunteer lawyer suggested that instead of Motion to Dismiss, I should use the inValid Registration as bargaining chip for a settlement in the presence of the Court Attorney or even the Judge ... but if it is so easy to register, why would that impress the LL?
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 16, 2016 11:02 am

The LL managed to fix the HPD registration issue, just like the volunteer lawyer from Housing Court anticipated.
So the Motion to Dismiss would have no sting.
I will have to come up with some new strategy how I can delay the process a little bit and to figure out how much he can demand from me. I definitely do not want to pay the ten percent late fee.

The real estate people no longer advertise this apartment and the four other ones in this house, as of today.

Maybe they do not want to show the world that all these ads are by now very stale, they may come back with the ads on the web pages soon. This is both good and bad for me. The LL cannot blame me for the other four apartments - but he is even more eager to get as much money as fast as possible.

Please help with some more ideas if you could.
Thanks in advance. I have no money for 300-400-500 dollars per hour lawyer consultations.

I would move out at once if I could but I cannot.
I do not even have the money to rent a mailbox right now at the Post Office and definitely not at UPS store, which is even more expensive.

They were handling my mail. The fools even touched the Certified Mail which had the invitation to the Court Process so I will bring this up to the Judge. According to the USPS site, the tracking shows that the envelope was "handed over to resident" - not to me, that's for sure.

They have three cameras on the house and one above their apartment door.

The Landlord often watches the entrance door with his computer camera, a few times he came out of their apartment when he wanted to talk to me.
Last edited by asbandjls on Wed Nov 16, 2016 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:56 pm

See the attached PDF. You can make a formal motion (where the LL would be able to submit papers in opposition), but we believe you can also make an "application" to the court on the next appearance. If it were my case, I would not tell the LL or LL's attorney before you make the motion. As our expert states, it really depends on which Housing Court judge you get.

You can also ask the court attorney before you see the judge. His or her reaction to the issue might give you some idea how the judge might react.

We asked an expert:

LL brings non-pay against tenant, but building is not registered with HPD. We suggest Tenant make a motion to dismiss for lack of registration. But LL discovers discovers it and registers building.

Is lack of registration a jurisdictional defect and can it be corrected?


The answer:

MDR.pdf


You are correct. If Petitioner makes a motion to amend the petition, Tenant should cross-move to dismiss citing this case. If Petitioner has not made a motion Tenant can make a motion to dismiss citing this case.

Because it is an old NYLJ case, a copy of it should be attached as an exhibit. And, back in 1994 Judges were usually stricter about what can be allowed to justify amending a petition. So, this lower court case might be ignored by today's Housing Court judges. But tenant should be able to rely on it. If nothing else the attached case will allow the tenant to be able to make a good faith motion.
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