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December 16, 2008
Eviction
I've been living in my rental for over 20 years in a one-family (not rent-controlled or stabilized). The new owners are asking me to move so they can start their renovations and ultimately use the building as their home. I've contacted Legal Aid and various housing advocacy groups for advice. Are there any other tenants out there who have gone through this? What are my rights, if any? Can I reasonably ask for a buyout? I've been sincerely looking for a reasonable rental but there isn't much out there. Any recommendations? This has been an awful time even though my new landlords are trying to work with me.
Comments
You have no rights. You can drag it out through the Landlord Tenant Court or agree to a payment for moving out quickly by an agreed upon date. I'd suggest that you ask for the amount of moving expenses and security and brokers fee for the new place and negotiate from there.
Posted by: yaakovdoe at December 16, 2008 10:22 PM
While I am an attorney, I do not specialize in this area of law so I can only tell you what I know from my limited experience with it. I once represented a landlord wishing to evict two tenants for the purpose of converting the building into a single family for their primary residence. Things got ugly because the tenants failed to evacuate by the stated date. I would advise you to not go that route. It is completely legal to evict a tenant when the owner wishes to occupy the space for their own residence. I don't know about the prospects of a buyout in this instance (I think it's different from say being tossed out for a condo conversion)but it seems unlikely. What did Legal Aid say about it?
Posted by: InsertSnappyNameHere at December 16, 2008 10:29 PM
Actually, you do have rights, though probably little guarantee of staying on as a tenant. There is a process to eviction. You have to be served notice in a certain manner no matter what the reason for termination. Do you have a lease? What are it's terms—those will affect the timeframe and outcome. There are way too many questions/details to any housing case than can be answered by strangers guessing at the specifics of the information you've posted. Get your information from an attorney who specializes in this area (I'm pretty sure there's a desk with free help set up on one of the floors in Housing Court.) Read the information at these sites: http://www.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/housing/pdfs/tenantsguide.pdf
http://www.courts.state.ny.us/courts/nyc/housing/index.shtml
If your new landlords are trying to work with you, I strongly recommend informing yourself about their position as well as your own, and see if you can jointly find a workable solution before going the Housing Court route.
Posted by: vinca at December 16, 2008 10:56 PM
While I understand that you are in a bad state because of this, I would think about the bigger picture and not go the housing court route.
While of course you have rights, so do they. It is their house, so in the big picture they do have every right to ask you to leave in order to move in. So any victory you gain from housing court is going to be nothing more than staving off the inevitable. In return, you get the stress of going to housing court and starting a fight that you can't really win. If you believe in this sort of thing, that's a lot of reactive karma you're generating.
It is also important to keep in mind that any future landlords will probably look up your history at housing court as part of your background check, and are free to deny you an apartment because you went to housing court. This is really unfair, but it happens all the time. Why be on the wrong side of it for no good reason?
I think it's good to negotiate with your landlords for a moving service and a broker's fee.
Posted by: vanburenproud at December 17, 2008 6:14 AM
This is the best time to be looking for a rental in literally years! You don't realize how lucky you are.
Go on Craigslist and don't limit yourself to one particular neighborhood.
You haven't specified your budget, but for $1000/mo you can certainly find a nice, clean, apartment in Brooklyn.
You have no leverage other than holding out which will result in eviction which would show up on a credit report and make it more difficult to rent in the future.
I know it's difficult to make like changes after living in one place for so long, but once you move, you'll enjoy getting to know a new neighborhood.
Posted by: IronBalls at December 17, 2008 8:44 AM
As a tenant in a single-family home, none of the multiple dwelling laws apply to your situation. Therefore, it is totally irrelevant whether the landlord wants to occupy the place him/herself or rent it to another tenant. What is relevant is whether or not you have a lease or are considered a month-to-month tenant. If you have a lease that the landlord wants to break by getting you to vacate before the end of the term, then some form of buyout would be appropriate. (But don't be greedy: the landlord could just wait until your lease expires. If you haven't moved by then, you'd become a 'holdover,' and would be evicted in a housing court proceeding.) If you're a month-to-month tenant, the landlord must provide at least 30 days of written notice that he/she wants you to vacate.
I spent many years counseling tenants at a free housing clinic, just to give you my bona fides.
Posted by: Iris at December 17, 2008 9:37 AM
This is the SECOND time where, to my surprise, I find myself agreeing with Ironballs. My son's apartment, in a clean, well taken care of building on Glenwood Road, near Brooklyn College is just over $1000/month and the broker's fee was paid by the landlord. There are several similar late-1920s six story elevator buildings on his block.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at December 17, 2008 10:04 AM
This happened to me years ago in the Slope--lived in a private, two-unit brownstone. Problem wasn't that the landlord wanted it for himself, but wanted to double the rent. We were told that it was a private house, and that we had no rights. Super bummer.
Posted by: longtimelistener at December 17, 2008 2:40 PM
IronBalls, I've seen several comments by you to the effect of rents sliding 25% and more. Just curious where you get these figures. I have tenants, and I keep an eye on listings to gauge the market, but I'm not seeing rental prices dropping at all. Is it that landlords are paying broker fees, or what are you seeing to support your claims?
Posted by: Frederick Law Homestead at December 17, 2008 4:18 PM
One other thing to consider; if you plan to proceed with a drawn out court process, your name will be permanently on file as part of a court ordered eviction. Needless to say, this will not be looked upon favorably by your next landlord.
It's one of the bad things about renting, you do not OWN the place you live in, and are therfore subject to the owner's wishes in the end. Think about it this way, you had a good run, time to look for another nice place with the rental choices better than ever for a good tenant, in this economic climate.
Posted by: Legion at December 17, 2008 5:16 PM
I agree about all of the stuff that people who own the building have the right to live in it if they choose, etc.
However, you should check your lease(s). Some leases from the time when NYC was not a desirable address included a provision that gave the tenant the right to renew on a yearly or biannual basis sort of like a rent-stabilized lease.
If your leases had any language like that, then it could be enforceable against current owners. At least, it would give you some bargaining power for a buyout b/c the current owners got a discount.
Posted by: slick at December 17, 2008 10:03 PM
The way this works is actually pretty simple. A tenant in a two family house is a tenant at will. If you have a lease that is what governs. If you have no lease you are a month to month tenant. If you have a lease at the end of term you become a hold over tenant, if your lease isn't renewed. the landlord will serve on you a hold over notice and a 5 day notice. If you a month to month tenant he needs to give you at least 30 days notice and then you also become a holdover tenant after that. In no case however in NY City may the landlord evict you without going to court and getting a court order. When you go to court almost always the court will give you time to look for an apartment and order you to pay rent. the process normally takes anywhere from 9-12 months if not longer....
Posted by: smeyer418 at December 17, 2008 11:18 PM
Anyone who tells you that the process is "simple" is an attorney who makes their living in landlord-tenant court. What smeyer418 writes about the process is basically correct (note the "almost always"), except that you will not find it simple. You will find yourself in court every month or nearly every month of the process, and you will find it both time-consuming and draining. The only way it will continue as long as smeyer418 suggests is if you hire one of the Smith St. shysters who uses adjournment for no other purpose than gameplaying and jockeying between the 20 other cases he has in every other courtroom of the building. In the end—if you have no lease, or your lease is expired—you will absolutely have to move, and any goodwill that may once have existed between you and your landlord will have long ago evaporated. As I and others have suggested, try finding a workable solution with your new landlord before going the Housing Court route.
Posted by: vinca at December 18, 2008 9:29 AM
Frederick,
I admit my ballpark estimates of recent rent reductions are just that -- ballpark estimates based on current personal experience as a landlord as well as personal discussions with other much bigger landlords and representatives of large NYC property management companies.
All you have to do, if you don't believe me, is go to Craigslist and look for apartments in your own neighborhood, where presumably you know the market best, and you'll see what I'm talking about.
The tens of thousands of folks who've been laid off on Wall Street have had an enormous immediate impact on the NYC rental market. Not to mention, so many fewer people are moving here from other parts of the country to start new jobs.
I'm no economist, and I don't have a thorough study to back up my claims, but I can clearly see what's going on. As a landlord with properties in one of NYC's most desirable neighborhoods, I'm afraid that things will only get worse next year.
Folks with rentals in fringe neighborhoods may be lucky to even cover their costs, much less make a profit.
Posted by: IronBalls at December 18, 2008 10:33 AM
I looked at Craigs List and rents are a few hundred bucks higher per month in Bay Ridge for a prewar studio than they were when I rented one 5 years ago. It defies logic completely that fewer people will be buying apartments AND rents will go down too. If fewer people are buying that means higher demand for rentals.
Posted by: traditionalmod at December 18, 2008 2:22 PM
Absolutely do not go to housing court. I can almost guarantee that if you are evicted it will severely hamper your ability to get a lease in the future.
Your landlords sound like reasonable people; in theory they could have just slipped a note under your door telling you to get out, with the threat of a court order to follow. That's what happens in the rest of the country.
Posted by: Bolder at December 20, 2008 9:56 AM
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