If you are a small landlord in Bronx County, you are in for a real treat.
Surprise! The Bronx County Housing Court is not your friend.
Should you wish to evict a tenant for any reason whatsoever, or for no reason, the law now requires you to give at least 90-day notice if tenant has resided 2 years in that apartment. You may recall, if you follow my blogs, that the New York State legislature passed a bill that became law. That bill said all a tenant had to do was check a box and they did not have to pay rent for almost two years The Supreme Court of the United States struck down that law. However, the legislature passed it again.
What was different?
Well, the legislature said you could challenge the hardship application, but guess what?
The Court did not hear any cases so back to getting screwed by the people you voted into office. Then the legislature passed Emergency Rent Protection ERAP. This beauty of a law is even worse than the hardship law
Why?
Because if your tenant checks a box or two, your case is knocked off the court calendar. Yes, you can challenge but you will lose tens of thousands of dollars. It is an unconstitutional law. However, the judiciary has been taken over by the same nice folks who passed the law. In this state, the democrats control all of the legislature and the governor (executive branch). I can say this as the judiciary is what closed our courts for well over a year and which enacted many laws to drag cases out to absurd amounts. We have a few 2020 cases still pending.
Even today the court is handling just a fraction of the cases it handled before
Judges won’t say so, but they are scared to buck the system. They can be removed easily or transferred out of the Borough. I have nothing against Staten Island but if I were a Judge in the Bronx, I would not wish to have to commute there every day because I refused to evict a tenant. I have vacated many ERAP stays but it takes time. One can expect a case to take from 3-5 months to be sent out to trial after it has been filed, sometimes longer.
And it gets worse!
The Warrant department in Bronx County is taking more than 4 months to process a warrant after you win your case. This is asinine! It should issue the very day you win your case as upstate. Then even after that happens there is nothing to stop a judge from signing an Order to Show Cause that will delay you another 2 months, or more.
I was in Montreal during their Canada Day week visiting the jazz festival a few years running. In Montreal all leases end on July 1, the whole city moves, nobody dies, everyone just moves unless they have negotiated a new lease. This is as it should be, after all what do you do when the movie ends?
Do you leave or lay out a sleeping bag?
Of course, you leave. If you are in a hotel, check out time is 11 am. If you do not leave you pay another day. The idiots in charge of the laws however have NYS landlords under their thumb. They say if the lease is up, you cannot sue for rent you must serve a predicate notice and start a holdover case. Thanks for nothing you dumbasses in the legislature, you have just stolen thousands from the owner of the property.
No wonder so many are selling their rental properties and leaving this cesspool of a state. The American dream was owning a home and the rent helped with paying the mortgage.
No longer.
Is it hopeless?
No
Vote against all democrats as they are intent on making it even harder. They want to pass legislation to keep you from ever evicting just because the lease is up. I loved the book Animal Farm by Orwell. It is an example of why communism is dangerous. There is a line in the book that explains this:
“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”
Clearly, in this state, the landlord has less rights that the tenant, she has no equal protection and no due process. If you own a home and have a difficult tenant, call us. But here is some advice for you in the meantime:
- Keep track of when your leases will expire
- If the tenant has been there 2 years or more make sure you go to the lawyer to prepare your predicate notice about 110 days before the lease will expire so you have enough time to have that notice served
- Also, make sure you have the phone and email contact information for your tenants
Hopefully, your tenants are good folks and you do not have to evict them, but sometimes you just need that apartment for family members or because you need to sell and everyone knows a house is worth more without the tenants. We can get you situated so that your rights are protected, and you can get the apartment for your family. After all it’s your house, your mortgage etc.
Be well and watch for my next video about a way to deal with that situation
