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Few things can cause headaches or lower the value of your building faster than a disruptive or destructive tenant. If you do nothing while a tenant harasses other tenants, you could run into trouble later on. If the tenant harms another building tenant, you may be brought into court to explain why you didn’t take any action to get rid of the troublesome tenant. Or other building tenants may start withholding rent, or move out, because of the tenant’s activit...

Even though your lease bans pets, a tenant may violate the lease by moving in with a pet—or by bringing in a pet sometime later. In either situation, you want to get the pet out. While you can always seek the tenant’s eviction as a last resort, you can first try to get the tenant to voluntarily remove the pet. But you must act quickly.

A sublet is a rental arrangement in which a tenant rents his or her apartment for a specific period of time to another person, called a subtenant. In a regular sublease agreement, the original tenant keeps the right to return and reoccupy the apartment when the sublease ends. And during the time in which the apartment is sublet, the tenant remains responsible for all lease obligations, including rent.

If you’re thinking about evicting a rent-stabilized tenant for nonprimary residence, don’t derail your case before it even starts. Nonprimary residence claims are perhaps the most common type of holdover proceedings brought by New York City owners. Although every case has its own unique set of facts, the cases generally follow a common path. And many owners will take the preliminary steps themselves and hire an attorney only after the tenant’s lease ends.

New York City and New York State have recently bolstered efforts to prevent discrimination. When Carmelyn Malalis was appointed to lead the New York City Commission on Human Rights in November 2014, the agency had come under scrutiny for what Public Advocate Letitia James called a “moribund agency culture” and a track record of “lax enforcement.” Now, Malalis can point to evidence of a revamped office, from a growing number of investigations to h...

You may want to use an apartment in your building for your business—say, as a managing agent’s office or a super’s apartment, or even for an unrelated business. But suppose a rent-stabilized tenant lives there. Can you evict the tenant? The answer is “Yes,” if you can meet the requirements set by the rent stabilization business use laws.

When you get hit with a rent cut for a decrease in services, act quickly to get the rent restored to its former level. Otherwise, you stand to lose a lot of money. For each rent-stabilized tenant whose rent gets cut, you’ll lose at least the most recent guidelines increase. For each rent-controlled tenant, you’ll lose an amount that depends on the type of service decrease. For either rent-controlled or rent-stabilized tenants whose rents get cut, you also ca...

Suppose a tenant’s apartment is burglarized or a building visitor falls when a stairway handrail becomes loose or something happens in your building that causes property loss or bodily injury. Are you certain your employees let you know about certain incidents like these as soon as they happen? If they don’t, you risk insurance coverage problems.

Are you paying for more oil than you’re really getting? Unscrupulous oil companies can trick owners about the amount of fuel that’s delivered to a building. Recently, a joint report released by the New York City Department of Investigation and Business Integrity Commission revealed widespread heating oil fraud across New York City, with nine companies and 44 individuals indicted on multiple felony counts. According to authorities, the defendants shorted oil ...

By Eileen O’Toole, Esq.