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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 » Wed Nov 16, 2016 5:51 pm

TenantNet wrote: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.


Thank You. I will read it very carefully.

Even if the House was not registered with HPD during this time period, the LL can demand rent (and late fee) for that time period, right?

His registration was INVALID between September 1 2015 and November 14 2016.

Apparently I led him to the web site. The Court Attorney gave us the Web Site Address when the LL asked her where to look up the Inspector's report.

There is a flier in the foyer. The Web address was on that flier also, but I never paid attention to it before. Apparently he did not either.

The LL is a Company, the LandLord, the Owner of the CoOp house.

The person is the Managing Agent, Main (if not only) Shareholder and he is also the Attorney of the Company. His wife is an attorney also, but neither of them practiced. He lives on the first floor with his family, staring at the entrance door quite often with his computer camera, to see who comes, who goes.

I could ask for a hearing that the Court Documents were not served correctly (that was also noted by the Court Clerk on the Answer Form). They foolishly even took the Certified Mail sent to me by their own Process Server for this case (that company only shows their address, not any company name as Sender on the envelope).

A small UPS package, which had a small thermometer was also handed over to "resident", not me.

I do not have the name of the "resident" who accepts my mail without me asking, either from UPS or USPS, but they are the only ones living on that floor, the other apartment, a studio, is empty, offered for rental. I could ask for a more detailed investigation both from UPS and USPS, but perhaps I will just ask the Judge to ask him whether they are taking my mail from the delivery people! I do not think anybody else from any of the other four apartments would accept any of my mail in the foyer, although we are on superficial speaking terms. Nobody is authorized to sign for me.

For the moment it amuses me that they handle my mail, but I will definitely bring this up to the Court Attorney or the Judge, even more so because I expect checks from retirement funds. Direct deposit would have been more complicated, the fund managers said.

Both the Court Attorney and the Judge appeared to be sympathetic to tenants but the fact is that he owns the house and I lived in his apartment for years paying the high rent, and now for months not paying at all.

This person lucked out when he was in his early thirties. He managed to acquire this house and now he lives off from renting it out to various people, with fairly high turnover it seems. I doubt that he ever had this many apartments empty at one time. This is why I will try to argue that if market rate rent could go up, it could also come down ... yet he kept increasing my rent relentlessly.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 16, 2016 6:12 pm

The Judge received his J.D. degree from New York University in 1994, so I am sure that he is most willing to consider such a document.

His decisions are published in New York Law Journal. I have yet to figure out how to read some of his relevant cases, as monthly subscription would cost 40 dollars. So for now I was just looking at the titles. It is just a handful anyway, he handles tens of cases daily.

A few made it to various newspapers, but none of those are close enough to my issues (for example fancy rent regulated apartment was advertised by tenant for short term rental on airbnb - not quite what I was doing here during the past five years).
Last edited by asbandjls on Wed Nov 16, 2016 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 16, 2016 6:29 pm

TenantNet wrote: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.


Thanks again.

The Application (without telling him/them) sounds about right unless he amends the Petition and they notify me about that.

He did indeed state in the Petition that his registration is valid, and signed it!

He should have at least left it un-signed, like he did with my Lease and Extensions.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Wed Nov 16, 2016 8:15 pm

You're using up disk space. No need to quote entire messages, please. If you talk as much as you write, you're going to lose.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby asbandjls » Wed Nov 16, 2016 10:15 pm

TenantNet wrote:You're using up disk space. No need to quote entire messages, please. If you talk as much as you write, you're going to lose.


Disk space? what sort of server do you use that you need to think in terms of disk space for text messages?

But I get your point. I watched a few cases in the Court Room of this Judge on the day when I talked with the volunteer lawyer. He did not have much time for either of them although he sounded like a patient and just individual. Someone referred to Housing Court as the Fast Food Counter of the Legal System.

I wrote some of my responses using my small smart phone screen and it is not so easy to scroll back and forth to delete a quoted message after I hit the Quote Button.
I will only use the Quick Reply Button in the future when I respond to long posts.

Funny you keep criticizing my posts while you are comfortable with all this legalese.

Why do they even Paste that sentence on the HPDONLINE site when the LL can get around it so easily?

You also criticized me for not having a job at the moment. I had prestigious jobs over the years in this country even as an immigrant while the LL and his wife, after getting their law degrees (not at the same time) just kept exploiting the opportunity that fell into his lap when he was young.

There is not much to gain here other than a little time and some abatement although I am sure that a highly paid lawyer could figure a few good twists out.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby BubbaJoe123 » Thu Nov 17, 2016 10:29 am

Some honest feedback: I've read this entire thread, and I'm not entirely sure what you want.

Asbandjls, if judge were to ask you, "what do you want," how would you respond, in no more than three short bullet points.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Thu Nov 17, 2016 12:08 pm

And anything more than three sentences will be deleted.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Thu Nov 17, 2016 12:52 pm

We just deleted three posts. Same old stuff, over and over and over. I think it's time we put this thread to bed. Topic is locked.
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Re: Nonpayment - repairs needed, LL did not sign Leases

Postby TenantNet » Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:38 pm

Just a note on this case (and then re-locking the topic).

We came across this case that appears to be relevant to the question raised here, and have put it in the Forum Reference section:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=12263
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