House of the Day: 26 St. James Place
This brownstone listing at 26 St. James Place in Clinton Hill reminds us a bit of what our house looked like when we took possession back in 2004. Lots of nice details but desperately in need of TLC! This place is a legal six-family with two of the units still occupied, whereas ours was an…
This brownstone listing at 26 St. James Place in Clinton Hill reminds us a bit of what our house looked like when we took possession back in 2004. Lots of nice details but desperately in need of TLC! This place is a legal six-family with two of the units still occupied, whereas ours was an SRO that was delivered vacant but without a Certificate of Non-Harrassment…
26 St. James Place [ERA Petkoff Realty] GMAP P*Shark
the style of the house places it circa 1865-70.
anyone who would gut this house is a Neanderthal.
the buyer needs to understand that the tenants will need to be bought out.
with luck they will be agreeable. However if you get someone who is litigious and who does not wish to go anywhere, the process could take years and ultimately be unsuccessful. I know several such cases. the legal costs are high and if the court rules in the tenants’ favor, they could sue to have their legal costs paid as well.
This doesn’t need a gut-job as much as a mechanical up-grade, and ripping-out all of the horrible, crappy walls and kitchen seemingly thrown in there to chop it up into small apartments. There is a lot of salvageable, irreplaceable, original detail there. The listing says built 1905, which is ridiculous. Easily 15 years or more older than that. I totally agree with amzihill; for someone with the time, money and lawyers, this would make a terrific one-family!
beautiful brownstone but with two rent-regulated tenants your ownership rights are curtailed. The right of the tenants to stay will outweigh the owner’s right to take possession any day of the week in Brooklyn courts. It is therefore extremely important to consult with landlord/tenant attorney and not believe most of what the seller says. The bottom line is that the house is worth more vacant and if he could possibly vacate it, he would.
these kind of renters are called “professionals” by tenant landlord attorneys. They know the ins and outs of tenant law and they are there to stay. They probably pay less than 50% of the market rate and know that they will never ever be able to find a comparable apartment at anywhere near the rent. So you can’t blame them, why move to benefit someone else? The law is entirely in their corner.
SRO’s have a different set of rules.