Landing Gear

Your belief does not conform to the laws of the State of New York.


It appears that you are confusing the concept of "multiple dwelling" with the issues in this thread.

jerry a. laska

My recollection is that only rent stabilized apartments have limitations regarding the amount of a security deposit.

erik123

The policy of landlords has become exceedingly flexible as of late - the market being flooded by rental apartments.

Pretty much - if you can afford it they'll take you.

lerasp

i heard a bizarre (to me) story that a fund of funds manager told me. he said that they were considering investing with a certain hedge fund and while doing their research learned that the HF manager broke his lease at one point. They didn't invest based on the logic that someone who voluntarily break a contract can't be trusted with clients' money. i personally think that's taking things waaay to far, but here you have it.

monitor

They are operating on the principle that "once a deadbeat always a deadbeat." In this case, it may have been a scosh too judgmental but I think that somebody who thinks that is "taking things waaay to [sic] far" needs a bit more experience in business.

Blumie

I think you may be judging this story without the benefit of context. It may very well be that the investors recognize that any one can have a blemish on his record, but given the choice of investing with someone with an unblemished record and with someone with a blemished record, most would opt for the former over the latter absent some overriding factor (e.g., a dramatically better investment history). At least in today's market, investors hold the cards and generally have the flexibility to choose with whom they invest, whereas not too long ago hedge fund managers (at least many of the more reputable ones) were turning away investors. So it may very well be that they don't consider this guy to be "a deadbeat," but that they have too many alternatives to even take the time to worry about whether this guys is a deadbeat or not.

themicah

If you break a lease and your landlord files a claim with a court, it'll probably show up in one of those background checks, and could absolutely come back to haunt you. For example, many hedge fund and private equity firms (and presumably other investors) do extensive background checks on the people involved in any business they plan to invest in. And coop boards often do background checks on potential buyers.

monitor

themicah knows from where he is talking. We've been on coop boards for may years and you can be assured that that hedge fund manager who took a walk on an apartment lease would have serious trouble buying a coop apartment in NY.

Landing Gear

Both of these messages have the unstated premise that someone breached a lease, say for example by nonpayment of rent, the landlord filed suit, and, most importantly, a judgment was rendered in favor of the landlord.

bk3day

there's the letter of the law and then there's what happens in the real world.

fwiw, I base my comments on decades of experience here in Manhattan as both a tenant (rent regulated & free market) as well as Landlord (of a coop/ free-market sublet)

If the OP rents a reasonably desirable apt and needs to break the lease - at THAT point he/she can:

• Notify the Landlord and attempt to negotiate a mutually agreeable out or
  
• Break the lease

Sure, the landlord CAN sue but again assuming the apt is reasonably desirable then odds are the landlord won't bother with a court action. LT court in NYC can be an arduous ordeal and generally favors the tenant.

Even when the tenant blatantly breaches, the LL must show damages. Despite the current market woes, a reasonably desirable apt will not sit empty for long.

Hell, when I needed to break my (free market) lease, the Management Co/Landlord jerked me around but in the end settled on keeping my security deposit and then turned around the next month and rented my apt for 40% more than I was paying.

While I can certainly appreciate the desire to be upfront about a potential early exit situation, IMHO, it's just not worth it. At best it will give rise to possible guarantee or escrow requirements and at worst could lose you the rental of your choice.

Life happens, leases get broken every day and when and IF that happens, you can deal with the situation as you see fit at THAT time.

Good Luck and if you'd like the names/numbers of a few tenant side attorneys here in NYC, just shoot me a PM

bk3day

Funny you should mention background checks of hedge fund managers. That's actually my line of work, as an Investigative Counsel.

While any uncovered breach of contract would always raise a flag, I'd give odds that unless the amount in question was large enough to meet the filing threshold required by NY Supreme Court, I doubt it would really be an issue or for a number of reasons, possibly never even come to light.

YMMV

monitor

All very true but in the case mentioned above by lerasp, it appears not unlikely that some landlord thought that it was a sufficiently significant financial breach to cause him to launch an L&T action that got that Tenant's name onto the credit bureau files.

bk3day

No doubt the courts are quite busy, and either party can choose to be stubborn but if keeping your credit history clean is a priority, then any person finding themselves on the wrong end of a suit can always attempt to settle thereby avoiding an entry of judgment.

monitor

If keeping the record clear was not a priority for a hedge fund manager, I certainly fail to follow his reasoning.

Not unlikely that it was, as in many of these cases, a default judgment for no show by defendant who was long out of town when the case came up and had forgotten about it.

Most tenants in NY know, or should know, how easy it is to show up and invent some story that a NYC L&T Court Judge will take at face value delaying any eviction judgment for months, if not years.

Landing Gear

You don't say. Where is this "real world," MTV?

Since we're giving resume data, I base my comments on more than 25 years of practicing real estate law and litigation here in New York City.

Generally is not always. The appellate courts have been very busy the past few years re-setting the wrongs of the Housing judges. A look at the weekly Real Estate Law column in the New York Law Journal would bear this out.

D'oh! No kidding. But there's no more fun in court than proving damages when the other side has defaulted.

One of my broker friends would love to know from where you got this idea; she's got plenty of open listings as does everyone else in her office. In any case, if the new rent is lower than the old rent (quite possible in today's market), that may increase damages.


I consider this one of the worst pieces of advice ever posted on this forum.

Actually, you will likely deal with the situation as the landlord sees fit since it will determine where you get sued and for how much. Further, if the landlord is a large corporation with retained or in-house counsel, it may decide to keep pursuing litigation which all the while it is costing the former tenant hourly fees.


What's an "investigative counsel," please? Specifically, are you admitted to practice before the Courts of New York State?

You will excuse me for asking what in blazes are you talking about?

Ninety per cent of residential landlord tenant cases originate in Civil Court where the minimum amount of damages required to be claimed is one cent. If you breach your lease and get sued for nonpayment of rent and/or other damages, and lose, a judgment gets taken against you. Whether this judgment is from Civil or Supreme Court makes little difference.

And of course, the landlord is represented by an idiot who will never challenge any nonsense the tenant says. Yeah, right.