Category Archives: Landlord-Tenant

Did Open Building Applications and Code Violations Trigger Holdover Rent?

In a commercial-landlord-tenant action, landlord, 677 Euromad LLC, sought $2,280,311.23 in holdover rent from tenant, Levy Gorvy LLC, and from guarantor, Dominique Levy. Euromad alleged that it was entitled to that amount because Gorvy failed properly to surrender possession of the leased premises when its lease expired. Gorvy and Levy moved to dismiss the complaint.

Paragraph 59(k) of the parties’ lease provided that a holdover tenancy, at double rent, will arise if “possession of the Demised Premises is not surrendered to Landlord within one day after the date of the expiration of the term or earlier termination of this Lease.” Paragraph 21 of the lease provided that upon expiration of the lease, “Tenant shall quit and surrender to Owner the demised premises, broom clean, in good order and condition, ordinary wear and tear excepted and Tenant shall remove all its property.”

Court Decides If Managing Member Of Tenant LLC Liable As Guarantor  

Y.B. Associates Group, LLC, as landlord,  entered into a written agreement with nonparty Mount Vernon Social Adult Day Care Center, LLC, as tenant. whereby Associates leased a certain building to the Day Care Center. The lease was 20 pages in length and included 70 separately numbered paragraphs. Paragraph 68, which was on the second to last page of the lease, was entitled “Good Guy Clause,” and provided that, in the event of the tenant’s default in its obligations under the lease, including default in the payment of rent, the “undersigned . . . covenants and agrees” to perform the tenant’s obligations up to and including the “Release Date,” with such date defined as the date upon which the tenant surrendered possession of the premises.

The last page of the lease had two signatures, with the first signature placed on the line designated for “TENANT: Mount Vernon Social Adult Day Care Center, LLC,” and the second signature placed on the line designated for “LANDLORD: Y.B. Associates, LLC.” The first signature was acknowledged to be that of Oleg Rubin. Next to Rubin’s signature are the handwritten words, “managing member.” Below Rubin’s signature are two lines of typewritten text, the first of which reads, “By: Mount Vernon Social Adult Day Care Center Mtg Co., LLC, Managing Member,” and the second of which reads, “By: It’s [sic] Managing Member, Oleg Rubin.”

Court Adjudicates Claim of Tenant and Counterclaim of Landlord

Emily Pickens filed a small claims action in  Civil Court against Terry Lane seeking return of a security deposit in the amount of $2,825 on a market-rate, residential apartment that she leased after vacating the premises about a year before the expiration of her two-year lease.

Lane asserted a counterclaim against Pickens for the rent due between the time when she vacated the apartment and when he was able to re-rent the apartment, plus the expenses incurred to re-rent the apartment.

Was Landlord Estopped from Asserting That No Binding Agreement Was Made?

In March 2021, Odonata Ltd., the tenant/operator of a hair salon, notified its landlord, Baja 137 LLC, that it would be surrendering the leased premises effective July 7, 2021, a month before the lease was due to expire, because it could no longer afford the rent. In response, Baja offered to forgive certain rent and late fees. And Baja advised Odonata that it would consider a third modification to the lease, at a lesser rent and on more favorable terms, stating that Odonata had been a “great” tenant. Odonata replied that it had already found new spaces at lower base rents and that it was prepared to move. And Odonata then presented Baja with a counteroffer of an even lower base rent and other more favorable terms, stating that it was more in line with “generous” offers it had received from other property owners. Baja acknowledged receipt of the counteroffer and advised Odonata that it would provide a “formal reply” to its counteroffer and that it was subject to a lease amendment signed by both parties.

This was originally posted on the SGR Blog.

Was Landlord’s Conduct Actionable/Sanctionable?

On August 11, 2021, Arlene Marie Karole filed a small claims action against 340 West End Ave, LLC, seeking $3,851.89 in damages for, among other things, the failure to return a security deposit for an apartment which Karole had leased from West End.

The Court conducted a nonjury trial from 10:25 a.m. and concluding at 12:25 pm. Karole appeared virtually via MS Teams. And West End appeared in person by Steven Kirschner, the president of Kay Equities, the management company of the apartment building. The trial was held on the record via FTR recording in Room 419 at 111 Centre Street, New York, New York.

This was originally published on the SGR Blog.

Was Occupant’s Use of Wrong Name (In)Curable?

Some cases raise complex questions of causation and other material facts. And some suits generate complicated and dispositive questions of law. But, as a recent case illustrates, some proceedings simply generate an over-the-top rating on the jurisprudential chutzpah scale.

Anthony Perez sued Garden Property Associates, LLC (owner) and DMARC 2007-CDS Garden Street, LLC (manager) for personal injuries sustained by the collapse of a ceiling in a bathroom of his apartment. Both GPA and DMARC moved to dismiss. Perez cross-moved to amend. The complaint was dismissed for lack of standing. Perez appealed.

This was originally published on the SGR Blog.

Would Court Order Tenant to Permit Access by Landlord?

Residential apartment leases usually authorize landlords access to the units to inspect and repair. And, as a recent case illustrates, the Court may be required to intervene where such access is denied.

400 West 59th Street Partners LLC is the owner and landlord of 1 Columbus Place in Manhattan. Tobi Oyolesi was a tenant of apartment S30C in the building, and Travis Lilley was a guest.

This was originally published on the SGR Blog.

Was Operation of Printing Press on Second Floor an Actionable Breach by Landlord?

Andrianna Shamaris, Inc, operated a luxury home specialty store located at 121 Varick Street, pursuant to a commercial lease signed in January of 2019 with 121 Varick St. Corp. The lease covered a portion of the ground floor retail space to be used as an “upscale furniture showroom.”

121 Varick Street sits atop the subway under Varick Street and is at the mouth of the Holland Tunnel. It also is located in what has historically been known as New York’s “printing district.” The building had a history of housing printing presses ever since seven printing companies formed the cooperative that is known as Varick. Each unit in the building also had a certificate of occupancy for manufacturing.

This was originally posted on the SGR Blog.

Did Adverse Impact On Service Constitute a Breach of Warranty?

Gene Rosen sued MF Associates of New York LLC and Ogen Cap Properties, LLC for breach of the warranty of habitability at four (4) high rise residential buildings located at 205/215/225 and 235 East 95th Street in Manhattan in a complex known as Normandie Court.

In his amended complaint, Rosen alleged, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, that MF Associates and Ogden, as owner and manager, respectively, of the Normandie Court buildings, breached the warranty of habitability on rentals/leases in those buildings by depriving tenants of the use of elevators during a modernization project from approximately August of 2014 to July of 2015. Rosen brought the case as a class action on behalf of himself, a former resident of one of the buildings during the time of the elevator outages, as well as as-yet unnamed other residents during that time who suffered from the non-functioning elevators in their buildings. Rosen alleged that, during the modernization project, there were times the residential tenants suffered inadequate, unreliable, and on at least one occasion, no elevator service.