When a process doesn’t work, people find a way around it — legal or not.
Housing court is an example, but first, another one. Trigger warning: It’s about immigration.
For some desperate people, the benefits of moving to the U.S. are great, but the chances of immigrating legally are small, and it takes years just to get an answer. So they sneak in, or overstay their visa.
For the same reason, some New York landlords change the locks rather than go to housing court to evict someone — especially someone who’s not on the lease. Housing court could be a two-year slog, cost thousands of dollars in legal fees and result in the squatter being allowed to stay. A lock-out often prompts the occupants to disappear.
The rule of thumb is to secure the apartment. Make all the moral judgments you want, but the basic economics are undeniable: If a risk justifies the reward, some people will take it.
Gothamist just ran a piece about lockouts. It featured Joan Rodriguez, who in 2018 moved into an income-restricted two-bedroom apartment in the Hub, Steiner NYC’s luxury building at 333 Schermerhorn Street in Downtown Brooklyn, to take care of Tina Ann Williams, the disabled sister of her incarcerated then-fiancé.
Rodriguez had not won a housing lottery for the affordable unit — for which there’s a long waiting list of families seeking two-bedrooms — and she was not on the lease.
In 2022, Williams died. The next day, the landlord changed the locks. Rodriguez somehow got keys and moved back in, but two weeks later she was locked out again. She was homeless for three years before an appeals court — reversing a judge’s decision — ruled last summer that she had to be let back in until her right to occupancy is decided.
The landlord told Gothamist that Rodriguez will get a lease if the city approves her rental voucher.
Rodriguez’s lawyer told the publication that judges have been ruling against locked-out occupants with uncertain rights to an apartment. That suggests that most lockouts are of people who don’t have a right to be there.
The question is whether to change the locks or take your chances in housing court. Both choices carry risks. A functioning court system would surely help.
What we’re thinking about: What New York firms will send letters of interest about becoming master developer for the Trump administration’s Penn Station overhaul? Amtrak said Thursday it has hired Hunton Andrews Kurth as the project’s legal adviser, KPMG as financial adviser and AKRF as environmental consultant. The project is on schedule to break ground by the end of 2027, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. Send predictions to eengquist@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: One reason to return a security deposit is that your tenant might one day become an important government official. Micah Lasher had to sue his first landlord, the notorious Steve Croman, to get his deposit back. Lasher went on to become Gov. Kathy Hochul’s policy director and is now an Assembly member. He’s also the favorite to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler.
Lasher told the story at a press conference about tenant harassment legislation, according to TRD reporter Lilah Burke. Lasher and his roommates won a judgment in small claims court, but Croman still didn’t pay. So they went to put a lien on Croman’s bank accounts. Croman’s people then agreed to pay if Lasher vacated the order so there would be no record of the decision.
Elsewhere…
We don’t normally report awards, but there’s a side story to the mixed-use project at 37 Hillside Avenue in Inwood, which just won an American Architecture Award in the social housing category.
The development team (RiseBoro Community Partnership, Coconut Properties, Architecture in Formation, SLCE Architects and others) planned to build a sister project next door at the same time, but the affordable Mitchell-Lama co-op never returned a signed contract after shareholders agreed to sell an empty lot for $7.3 million.
The co-op’s reasons remain unknown, and the parcel remains empty. If you missed my story about that, it’s here.
Closing time
Residential: The top residential deal recorded Thursday was $7.75 million for a 3,600-square-foot two-family house at 14 Bank Street in the West Village. Matthew Pravda, Matthew Lipsky and Matthew Lesser with Leslie Garfield had the listing.
Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $173 million for 757 Third Avenue, which was handed back from BGO to New York Life Real Estate Investors via a deed in lieu of foreclosure.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $12.6 million for a 3,811-square-foot condominium unit at The Henry, 211 West 84th Street on the Upper West Side. Alexa Lambert with Compass has the listing.
Breaking Ground: The largest new building permit filed was for a proposed 31,885-square-foot, 8-story mixed-use property at 394 New Lots Avenue in East New York. Jonathan Imani with IMC Architecture filed the permit on behalf of Moshe Nachum.
— Matthew Elo
