Sign up and get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to your inbox each morning, NYC Landlords Almost Never Get Arrested for Illegal DIY Evictions. Occupants of illegal basement and cellar apartments face potential dangers such as carbon monoxide poisoning, inadequate light and ventilation, and inadequate egress in the event of a fire. ZLIjjg}&%Ns834V\-"b^'.!h%vXZ"" @Pb_V;kt.u-AH If you are a commercial tenant, you can get information about financial and legal resources, including help reviewing and negotiating commercial leases, on the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and Businesses page. They were there for an arrest.. As a result, the second floor tenant has been living in the apartment as a month to month tenant. apartment in the basement was illegal. Tenants have to choose between the harassment and the bad conditions or complaining and being thrown out by the city, said Sateesh Nori, a housing attorney for Legal Aid in Queens. /Prev 89579 /ProcSet [/PDF /ImageC /Text] Holness called the police, and they tried and failed to open the building door, she testified, backed up with a photo of the cops trying unsuccessfully to get in. Sign up and get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to your inbox each morning. If a Vacate Order is issued by either agency, the occupant is advised that they can receive relocation services through HPD. You can report a rooming house, boarding house, or other Single Room Occupancy (SRO) dwelling that is used as a business, illegally converted, or overcrowded. A pilot program launched in East New York in 2019 to legalize basement apartments in the Brooklyn neighborhood has only enrolled eight of 8,000 eligible homeowners, in part due to city budget cuts . The thing is, state law constrains what they can do to make them legal.. Newark has free . left the program with just $91,000 for the year, LISTEN: A State of the State for an Unsettled State, How These NYC Public Housing Residents Became Models for Tenant Rights Activism, In State of the State Speech, Hochul Backs Adams Housing Agenda, Northwest Bronx Leads City in Heat Complaints, No Heat in Your NYC Apartment? 0000063195 00000 n He said that despite the program cuts, funding for loans remains to support the nine approved applicants. endobj All Rights Reserved. ft. apartment is a 1 bed, 1.0 bath unit. Many of the arrests led to desk appearance tickets, which allow defendants to come back to court later even though the NYPD patrol guide expressly prohibits issuing the tickets for unlawful evictions. We went to get a coffee and we sat down and began to cry, because, well, it was our house. According to Norma and Luis, during the pandemic the landlord also told them incorrectly that the eviction moratorium only applied to citizens, not undocumented immigrants. "Occasionally we also see situations where there's an apartment that's entirely in an attic or basement, which is generally illegal," Himmelstein adds. In every instance, the arrests came after those tenants made repeated complaints about building conditions to either Mifsud or HPD. Cozy Basement Apt 30mins To Nyc Nutley Updated 2022 S. City Puts 14b On Illegal Basement Apartments. We Asked Four People With Inside Knowledge. ( N E b # x ' Pendstream Critics who want the city to crack down on illegal basement apartments and end their use say the units are unsafe and lead to overcrowding. Paying the fine for the violation will be much cheaper then trying to evict from an illegal apartment. Under the states multiple dwelling law, the conversion process into legal two-family homes is expensive for landlords, which has compounded the proliferation of accessory dwelling units in recent years. When we left, Carol [Holness] became the enemy, because Carol knew everything, said Stewart. Holness kept calling the police, and officers wrote up two incident slips on March 21 noting her reports of harassment and illegal eviction. View > Zoom > Zoom In, In the View menu, select Text Size. In this case, since the basement is not designed for dwelling purposes, it may not be rented. The Kavnanagh-Epstein bill would grant the city authority to provide financial relief, rather than penalties, to landlords and tenant protections to those living in basement units. Between April and October 2021, HPD sued Mifsud five times in Housing Court, seeking building access for HPD repair crews and court orders directing Mifsud to provide heat, hot water and electricity, as well as civil penalties, according to petitions. /Pages 18 0 R If you would like to know more about landlord-tenant issues, or need help with a case, contact the Law Office of Richard Kistnen, (718) 738-2324, or email [emailprotected]. The NYC Base Campaign says more than 300,000 such units could be converted into legal homes. stream View more property details, sales history and Zestimate data on Zillow. For housing advocates, the scant number of arrests confirms what theyve long observed that the police do not treat unlawful eviction as a crime, preferring to let tenants and landlords duke it out in Housing Court. 0000000790 00000 n =)^)%!:l_@C)M]"CwtQu},6{.iimF=sWw `FCwi To report a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) being rented as a hotel room, use theHousing Used for Short-Term Rental (Vacation Rentals or Illegal Home-Sharing)page. You would not be removing the kitchen for safety concerns. The state Senate and the Assembly are close to passing legislation that would legalize the underground market of unregulated basement apartments in New York City. Because I was in the cold, and I was in the dark.. 37 0 obj You can simply stop paying rent, and challenge him to evict you. Unless the lease states otherwise, rent is due . Im not getting no help from the cops she added. After spending a night in jail, she was issued a temporary order of protection by a judge. Carol Holness alleges her former landlord threw her belongings in the trash while trying to evict her from her Rockaways home. Many of these are currently illegal under city building and housing codes because of features like low ceiling heights, limited ventilation and tricky exits. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio established a pilot program in 2018 to bring a section of unregulated basement units in East New York, Brooklyn, up to code, but he cut funding for the program by 92% in the pandemic. Basement Apartments Safe for All had even developed specific conversion blueprints, focused on such details as waiving parking requirements, floor-area ratio and, crucially, providing owners. They said they last owed their landlord $200, which their rent ledger indicates they owed as of May 2021. Report an SRO illegally converted, overcrowded, or used as business. The City Health Commissioner Refused. In a July 2021 sworn affidavit in Housing Court, Holness said Mifsud had thrown her TV in the trash and that she was still missing a dining room set, three bed sets and an entertainment center. Details about the original use of the building, Details about the new use of the building. In our example, we were using a two family residential house in Queens. #vuU7d |l KJ?e8w!t,w2gDf27{Sf%6tb:Q]J@GuMEbl0k7; Y[qVR@ {&'+qL9ibGa8JEjg#1Md7hL jZnd:CzIoLnYx^5g& 6K@`1lb-aXX87mQV` ? The city allocated $11.7 million for the three-year program, which would subsidize low- or no- interest loans of up to $120,000 each for homeowners seeking to bring basements up to code, while guiding them throughout the construction process. Report past illegal conversion of a manufacturing space. (914) 965-3331 4:30 pm-8:30 am. Another hurdle is the 2020 New York State discovery reforms that substantially expanded records prosecutors must turn over to the defense, and tightened the time to do so. After they left their apartment, they spent two days in Corona Park before Norma called her brother in Brooklyn to ask for a place to stay, according to Norma. Hurricane Ida wasnt their first inundation their home had flooded at least three times before, according to Luis. But during the pandemic a time of extraordinary hardship for renters and landlords alike the police rarely did, even as thousands of tenants filed Housing Court cases against their landlords for the same acts. During the pandemic, New York Attorney General Letitia James issued guidance to police statewide, urging them to enforce unlawful evictions as a criminal matter if they had probable cause. This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports. endobj Perhaps there are no standard size windows in a basement or no exit in case of fire. That meant she had to stay away from Mifsud except when entering or leaving the building. Of the 11 defendants cases provided to THE CITY by the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Bronx DAs, six list unlawful eviction below charges like criminal trespassing, assault, burglary, menacing and criminal mischief. HPD will re-inspect the premises on the enforcement date to verify the illegal basement or cellar apartment is vacant and properly sealed. >> Utilities . >> 3. Md&8KSwe Qp&kUnaD2JbV{S&lk_*gVZN4[2Up'os* A holdover case can be brought against a tenant when there is no lease, or if there is a lease but alleging that the tenant has materially breached the lease such that the lease is terminated. In this case, and in many states, the landlord could be liable for your cost of finding and relocating to a new residence. Its goal: to work with property owners to legalize 40 basement apartments in one- to three-family homes. After an argument over the heat, Mifsud called Stewart the n-word repeatedly in the texts. HPD launched a pilot program, the Basement Apartment Conversion Pilot Program (BACPP), in partnership with Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation. At first, the landlord seemed receptive to helping them but later changed his mind. Doctor Urged NYCHA Arsenic Tests After Patients Death. Hotels are not SROs. Getting in and out Basement apartments must have multiple means of egress in case one entrance is blocked by fire, for example. Learn if an apartment or room is illegal or unsafe. Boarding houses and rooming houses are SROs. However, renting an illegal apartment comes with its own risks, including that your landlord won't have to comply with local laws relating to renting places to . Report a commercial space used as a residence. In general, rent stabilization in New York City applies to buildings of six or more units built between February 1, 1947 and December 31, 1973. Threats of eviction are not only illegal, but also damaging to the well-being of New Yorkers. 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