Itkowitz PLLC helps a Landlord in Greenwich Village Recover a Rent Controlled Apartment for a $25k Buyout, with ZERO Litigation.
March 2016
Itkowitz PLLC helped a landlord in Greenwich Village recover a Rent Controlled apartment for a $25k buyout, with ZERO litigation.
The tenant was a college professor who had been in the apartment since 1971. The problem was that he no longer truly lived there. He used the apartment as a pied-a-terre and a storage facility. The case had a few tricky points to it, however. They all do.
The way we increased our chances of success was by spending extra time on the predicate notice of termination. Video showed that the tenant was not there a lot. Many predicate termination notices in non-primary residence cases merely recite the ubiquitous line – “Furthermore, upon information and belief, you have failed to spend more than 183 days out of the preceding year at the subject apartment.” We decided to do more than that, however. Among many other things, our notice contained this:
The only means of ingress and egress to the Premises was under continuous video surveillance for a period of approximately seventh months, from October 2014 through and including April 2015 (“the Surveillance Period”). During the Surveillance Period:
(a) Tenant never occupied the Premises;
(b) Tenant was only at the Premises on 15 occasions, out of 212 days, or 7% of the 212 days;
(c) Tenant did not go to the Premises once from the period spanning Wednesday, October 14, 2014, through and including Monday, December 14, 2014, a period of 54 days, almost 8 weeks;
(d) Tenant’s longest visit to the Premises lasted for 2 hours and 18 minutes on Thursday, January 15, 2015; her visits on the other fourteen occasions lasted sometimes only a few minutes;
(e) The earliest Tenant ever arrived at the Premises was 4:41 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, 2015, and the latest she ever left was 9:46 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, 2015; she never spent the night in the Premises;
(f) The total amount of time that Tenant was inside the Premises over the Surveillance Period, which was comprised of 5,088 hours, was 14.35 hours, or .029% of the 5,088 hours.
Who is going to argue with that?! A tenant who receives a notice like this understands that the landlord is finally serious about recovering the apartment.
itkowitz.com
Itkowitz PLLC helped a landlord in Greenwich Village recover a Rent Controlled apartment for a $25k buyout, with ZERO litigation.
The tenant was a college professor who had been in the apartment since 1971. The problem was that he no longer truly lived there. He used the apartment as a pied-a-terre and a storage facility. The case had a few tricky points to it, however. They all do.
The way we increased our chances of success was by spending extra time on the predicate notice of termination. Video showed that the tenant was not there a lot. Many predicate termination notices in non-primary residence cases merely recite the ubiquitous line – “Furthermore, upon information and belief, you have failed to spend more than 183 days out of the preceding year at the subject apartment.” We decided to do more than that, however. Among many other things, our notice contained this:
The only means of ingress and egress to the Premises was under continuous video surveillance for a period of approximately seventh months, from October 2014 through and including April 2015 (“the Surveillance Period”). During the Surveillance Period:
(a) Tenant never occupied the Premises;
(b) Tenant was only at the Premises on 15 occasions, out of 212 days, or 7% of the 212 days;
(c) Tenant did not go to the Premises once from the period spanning Wednesday, October 14, 2014, through and including Monday, December 14, 2014, a period of 54 days, almost 8 weeks;
(d) Tenant’s longest visit to the Premises lasted for 2 hours and 18 minutes on Thursday, January 15, 2015; her visits on the other fourteen occasions lasted sometimes only a few minutes;
(e) The earliest Tenant ever arrived at the Premises was 4:41 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, 2015, and the latest she ever left was 9:46 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, 2015; she never spent the night in the Premises;
(f) The total amount of time that Tenant was inside the Premises over the Surveillance Period, which was comprised of 5,088 hours, was 14.35 hours, or .029% of the 5,088 hours.
Who is going to argue with that?! A tenant who receives a notice like this understands that the landlord is finally serious about recovering the apartment.
itkowitz.com
