Renters Rights in a Market Rate Apartment (Notice)
Backstory: For three years, I have rented a unit from a shareholder in a co-op. The leases were pretty standard-looking one year leases, although there is no language regarding notice for renewal or non-renewal of leases. My current one is set to run out at the end of August. I have been living in limbo for the last few weeks as she tells me the co-op board has denied our lease renewal (over co-op politics, not my actions) but she is appealing. Question: If she looses whatever appeal she is waging, can she expect me to just leave by the end of the month? Is she required by law to give me formal 30 days notice that I must vacate? Any advice is appreciated. Most of what I am finding online relates to rent-regulated or month-to-month situations, which I am not. Side note: If you are a landlord with a well-priced 2 BR apartment, I would be interested to hear about it. THANKS!
m926bk
in Landlord 11 years and 11 months ago
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Suzanne | 11 years and 11 months ago
This is a situation where I don’t really get why a non-dispute leads you to look for lawyers. From what you’ve described, your interests are aligned — you both want you to stay in the apartment — and she’s been transparent about what’s going on. You know as much as she does: your lease is ending and the board has said you have to leave. You and she can both guess about the likelihood of an appeal prevailing, but both of you must know that it’s not likely to and it’s time to move. It just sounds like you are looking for a technicality on which to trip her up. Why not just talk to her, and spend your energy preparing to leave (because the status quo is that you have to leave), rather than finding hooks to allow you to stay?
boredatwork | 11 years and 11 months ago
In an unregulated, market rate apartment, you have no rights once the lease expires. The upcoming expration of your lease is “notice,” although typically a conversatiob between the owner and the tenant as a courtesy is nice. Of all of the gibberish posted above, this paragraph is applicable: If you live in a market-rate / unregulated apartment, it’s important to clarify with your landlord happens when your lease ends. If you have not signed a new lease by the time your current lease expires, your landlord may expect you to leave – and may begin eviction proceedings at any point after the lease expires – if you have not moved out and returned possession of the apartment to your landlord (including by returning your keys). You need to talk to the landlord and find out what her plans are. Short of an agreement between her and the coop board, you should begin to look for a new place. Of course you can delay and force her to evict you, but that may be a costly option to pursue.
m926bk | 11 years and 11 months ago
@ Putnamdenizen : I will have a conversation with her – soon – but would like to know my rights first, especially as it relates to notice, as I have had none. She is nice but formidable. I can report back what I learn!
Putnamdenizen | 11 years and 11 months ago
Why not call your landlady and ask? If she says she wants you out negotiate for more time to look. She’s really not going to want to start an action against you. But in the end there may be a very reasonable co-op rule which prohibits her from renting any longer.
brokelin | 11 years and 11 months ago
From Metcouncilonhousing.org: “If my lease expired and I was not given a renewal offer, can I keeping paying the same rent? If you live in a market-rate / unregulated apartment, it’s important to clarify with your landlord happens when your lease ends. If you have not signed a new lease by the time your current lease expires, your landlord may expect you to leave – and may begin eviction proceedings at any point after the lease expires – if you have not moved out and returned possession of the apartment to your landlord (including by returning your keys). However, your landlord may be willing let you sign a new lease, or remain without any lease as a month-to-month tenant. Tenants with leases have many more protections than those who don’t. However, tenants sometimes enter month-to-month arrangements when their landlord is unwilling to sign a new lease – or because the tenant prefers the flexibility of being able to move out on one month’s notice. If your lease ends and you try to keep paying the rent but your landlord refuses to accept the rent, you are NOT in a month-to-month tenancy. Your landlord may be preparing to start a court case to have you evicted. If your lease ends and your landlord continues to accept your rent, you have entered into a month-to-month tenancy arrangement. As a month-to-month tenant, every month that your landlord collects rent from you, he/she is accepting you as a tenant in that apartment for another month. However, your landlord may end the tenancy by giving you 30 days written notice. (The 30 days must cover a full month. If the notice is served in the middle of a month, it becomes effective at the end of the next full month.) As a tenant you can also end a month-to-month tenancy by telling your landlord in writing that you intend to move out in 30 days. You must continue paying rent for the remainder of time that you live in the apartment. Your notice can cover any 30 day period.” If their explanation is correct, it appears that it all hangs on whether she cashes your rent check for that next month, as they say she can move to evict at any time after your lease is up if she doesn’t. Or whether she makes an agreement to let you stay until she gets an answer on her appeal plus some time – but you may want to get that in writing from her.
brokelin | 11 years and 11 months ago
I’ve also been a coop owner, and know how coops can be arbitrary and not care about making decisions in time for others to plan around their decisions. But unless they are really nuts (some are), they get things like laws, usually, when they are explained to them, if you find the law gives you some time. Which isn’t to say they may not penalize your landlord if they are the fee charging sort of coop – but that’s not really your issue, that’s her problem.
brokelin | 11 years and 11 months ago
oh, and it is Metropolitan Tenants Council (I typed it wrong). They mostly work with regulated tenants, I seem to remember, so you may or may not find someone there who can answer your questions, but I seem to remember years ago they did know how to answer questions on unregulated rentals…but things do change.
brokelin | 11 years and 11 months ago
Actually, I don’t know if a landlord can actually move to evict in NYC without giving you notice your tenancy must end first…the laws on this are similar in different states I lived in, but with minor differences in these areas. If she can just file to evict, you may wish to avoid having a record that she did file an eviction against you, even if you ultimately were given the appropriate time to leave by the court. So you need to find out the answer to this question, too, from your attorney when you talk to them. It partly depends on your relationship with your landlady – if she gets that you need to have some time to move if she gets a final, negative decision from the coop, and will give you that time, even if she is getting pressure from the coop. And how reasonable the coop board is once she tells them you are moving by x date if they deny her appeal, whether they will leave that as OK and leave both you and she alone until you move out.
m926bk | 11 years and 11 months ago
Thanks @ brokelin, as well. I do agree that I should get some legal advice – from either a tenants’ advocacy organization, the state, or an attorney. My landlady is a nice person who has been put in a bad situation and is looking out for herself – but she is not an experienced property owner, and I don’t think she has given much thought to notice and the rights that I have myself. Thanks for the suggestions – I’ll start with a call to the Metropolitan Tenants Counsel and take it from there.
brokelin | 11 years and 11 months ago
I don’t believe silence does equal lease over. Without a valid notice that you must move at the end of your lease, given in the proper # of days in advance (which would be a month if we are talking month-to-month here), I believe you automatically become a month to month tenant after your lease ends. You need to get yourself legal advice from an attorney or tenant advocate who understand tenants’ rights (which you aren’t likely to find from most landlord-swaying people on this board as to whether what she said to you was proper advice that you must move, and given in a timely manner). Since she has led you to believe she has the right to appeal, (and hasn’t given you anything in writing?), she may not have even actually given you this notice yet. Find out exactly what she must do to comply with the law to end your tenancy. Then, if you do find out she must give you a month’s notice (at the end of the previous month, and not mid-month, I believe), if she loses her appeal and tries to get you to move right away, you can calmly write her what she must do for her notice to leave to be valid, and let her know you are willing to go, but you expect the proper & timely legal notice so you have time to find your next place. This should be notice to leave as your (month-to-month) lease is up – I believe this step comes first, with you being given the requisite time to vacate, before she moves to evict you. Notice that a tenancy is over in x (must be the right legal amount) of days is notice to leave, it is not an eviction. That should give you enough time. You do need to find out, though, from competent legal advice, what your exact time frame to move is if she returns your rent check for the month after your lease is up, indicating that she is ending your tenancy. This is not meant to be legal advice, just a former tenant’s understanding of how it works. You may be able to get competent advice for free – try the N.Y. State Attorney General’s office – they used to answer questions of this sort, as well as any tenant advocacy group – used to be one called Metropolitan Tenants Counsel. There also used to be some free legal clinics around – say on a given evening – staffed with attorneys or law students who understand landlord-tenant issues. Google for one. You can also get a one-half hour or so consultation with a landlord-tenant attorney for a very nominal fee by calling the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s attorney referral line and telling them exactly what you want – someone who understands tenants’ rights in an unregulated rental in a co-op – I’ve used this service a few times, and so have friends, and we always got attorneys who well understood and explained the legal issues in the area we wanted to know about, as they screen the attorneys who make their list of ones to recommend. While your mileage may vary, it could be worth your while to give it a try. You do need to know your rights in your specific case!
m926bk | 11 years and 11 months ago
Thanks @Putnamdenizen. I appreciate your response. No, my landlady has not told us to move out as she would like us to stay on for another year, of course, if we can. As would we, which is why we have been patient up until this point. But like I mentioned, I am worried now that she expects us to just quietly leave in less than a month if things don’t work out. I’d hate this situation to devolve to a point where we say “evict us,” but we need to know our rights and then do what’s best for us too. It is incredibly time consuming and expensive to move in NYC!
Putnamdenizen | 11 years and 11 months ago
It doesn’t sound like she has even told you to move out. Now under your lease she probably doesn’t have to (silence = lease over), but doesn’t she really want you to stay? If you stay and keep paying rent then she gets what she wants. The coop board may then seek to terminate her lease for failure to abide by their guidelines (which may give a max number of years that an apartment can be sublet). You would also be served in such an action. But that wouldn’t happen quickly. Even if she did want you out you have the right to legal process. If you stay beyond your lease, she would have to start a lawsuot to evict you as an illegal holdover. All that takes time….