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Posted by Real New Yorker on February 20, 2001 at 19:18:32:

In Reply to: Illegal Residential Lease in Commercial Loft posted by Dave Roberts on February 20, 2001 at 08:39:36:

Please. You knew exactly what you were getting into, right from the ad it was made quite clear that this is not a legal apartment. You choose to live there and accepted the terms. As someone said in response to another whiner here, did you expect this frog to turn into a prince ? Never happens. You should have inspected this non-apartment carefully and considered the full ramifications of what you were doing before signing your name on the dotted line and moved in.

To answer your questions -

1. What does your lease say about "additional rent"? Have you asked the LL to provide you with copies of the relevant bills ?

2. Sounds like he's maintaining the place to commercial loft standards. Which is exactly what you agreed to get.

3. Escrow deposit of security deposits is a must for all residential leases in buildings of 6 or more units. But you live in a commercial building, and you agreed otherwise in the lease. And now you complain ?

4. Does NYC care about this situation ? In the letter of the law, yes. There is a strong lobby of artists and others who advocate lofts for living space, however, so I don't think a city crackdown would be very popular.

5. What should you do ? If you don't like it there move out. If you want a regular, full service apartment then that is what you should look for. If you want a resonably priced neighborhood, it's not in midtown Manhattan !

May I suggest that in the future you carefully consider what you want and what your lease says you will get. In this case, you got exactly what you thought you wanted. No sympathy from me.

Follow Ups:

• Re: You got exactly what you asked for and agreed to Dave 02/20/01 (0)

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: Please.  You knew exactly what you were getting into, right from the ad it was made quite clear that this is not a legal apartment.  You choose to live there and accepted the terms.  As someone said in response to another whiner here, did you expect this frog to turn into a prince ?  Never happens.  You should have inspected this non-apartment carefully and considered the full ramifications of what you were doing before signing your name on the dotted line and moved in.  

: To answer your questions -

: 1.  What does your lease say about "additional rent"? Have you asked the LL to provide you with copies of the relevant bills ?

: 2.  Sounds like he's maintaining the place to commercial loft standards.  Which is exactly what you agreed to get.

: 3.  Escrow deposit of security deposits is a must for all residential leases in buildings of 6 or more units.  But you live in a commercial building, and you agreed otherwise in the lease.  And now you complain ?

: 4. Does NYC care about this situation ?  In the letter of the law, yes.  There is a strong lobby of artists and others who advocate lofts for living space, however, so I don't think a city crackdown would be very popular.

: 5. What should you do ?  If you don't like it there move out.  If you want a regular, full service apartment then that is what you should look for.  If you want a resonably priced neighborhood, it's not in midtown Manhattan !

: May I suggest that in the future you carefully consider what you want and what your lease says you will get.  In this case, you got exactly what you thought you wanted.  No sympathy from me.


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