Landlord Tenant Law

There is no uniform approach relating to management fee provisions in leases, and courts will recognize inequities in the charging and payment of management fees when lease terms are ambiguous or a landlord or tenant fails to comply with the terms of its lease.

In Peyton v. New York City Board of Standards and Appeals, the First Department faced a difficult question: when a zoning lot includes more than one building, can open space accessible to residents of one building, but not to residents of the other buildings, count as open space within the meaning of the New York City Zoning Resolution?

Tenant's Contractor Has Lien Against Landlord's Interest
Stipulation of Settlement Between Landlord and Tenant Did Not Release Guarantor
Landlord Bound By Rent Mistakenly Set By Temporary Receiver

Lot Owner Lacks Standing to Compel Payment of Assessments
No Foreclosure Jurisdiction Over Deceased Owners
Questions of Fact Preclude Summary Judgment on Claims of Easement By Necessity and Prescription

Zoning Board Bound By Prior Determination
Planning Board Had Rational Basis to Require Church to Record an Easement
Special Permit Denial Overturned
Restrictive Zoning Ordinance Sustained Against Multiple Challenges

When customers, employees and others invited to or simply passing by a leased commercial property are injured, and want compensation, who will be on the hook for the costs of bodily injury and property damage — the landlord, the tenant, the maintenance and security contractor hired by them, or some combination of these?

As retail vacancies have multiplied in New York City in recent years, some in the City Council have advocated for the reconsideration of commercial rent control, as set out in a proposed piece of legislation, the Small Business Jobs Survival Act This article provides a brief, nontechnical review of the bill and the legal and practical hurdles it faces if enacted.

Ever since 2009, it has been an article of faith that a building's receipt of J-51 benefits means that all of the apartments therein automatically become rent-stabilized. If those apartments were already rent-stabilized, they become stabilized a second time. The second layer of rent stabilization has the effect of barring luxury deregulation, at least until J–51 benefits expire. In West Village Houses Renters Union v WVH Hous. Dev. Fund, Justice Barbara Jaffe held that the tenants of 32 unsold cooperative units at the West Village Houses complex were not rent-stabilized, even though their buildings had received J-51 benefits.