Landlord Can't Get Back or Future Rent

Facts: Landlord sued to evict six loft tenants for nonpayment of rent. Tenants had stopped paying rent in February 1991. Tenants claimed landlord didn't comply with the legalization timetables contained in the Loft Law and, therefore, wasn't entitled to any of the rent claimed. Landlord claimed that 1987 Loft Law amendments didn't create new legalization deadlines, and that at that time the loft board wasn't expeditiously processing legalization applications. Landlord also claimed that 1992 Loft Law amendments retroactively extended her time to comply with legalization requirements and preserved her right to collect both retroactive rent due before June 1992 and future rent. Court: Any lapses under the 1987 Loft Law amendments don't automatically excuse landlord from taking all reasonable and necessary actions to legalize the building. Since the 1987 Loft Law didn't contain particularized legalization timetables, the only way to gauge whether landlord took the required reasonable and necessary actions was to apply the 1982 Loft Law's legalization timetables from the 1987 amendment's effective date: July 27, 1987. Under that formula, landlord should have filed an alteration application and statement describing the code compliance work to be done in 1988. Landlord didn't file these papers until 1991 and 1992, respectively. And the 1992 law only gave previously noncompliant landlords the right to collect prospective, not retroactive, rent. In addition, landlord still didn't comply with the new legalization timetables set forth in the 1992 law. Landlord was required to get an alteration permit by Oct. 1, 1993, and still hadn't done so.

Fink v. Ross: NYLJ, p. 31, col. 2 (1/24/94) (Civ. Ct. Kings; Rivera, J)