Landlord Didn't Repair Leaks

Landlord sued to evict tenant for nonpayment of rent. Landlord and tenant formally agreed that tenant would put rent into escrow. This money would be released to landlord when all agreed-upon repairs were ''substantially completed.'' The agreement also stated that if the leaks continued, then substantial performance of repairs wouldn't have been completed. Landlord later asked the court to authorize release of the escrow money, totaling $17,000. The court ruled for landlord, and tenant appealed and won. There was no proof that the leaks were repaired, and landlord didn't submit an engineers' report describing the work that was done, as required by the agreement. There was also a DHCR order determining that the underlying water and leak problems hadn't been resolved. So the escrow funds weren't releasable.

Weinreb v. Bogoch: NYLJ, p. 28, col. 2 (1/29/98) (App. T. 1 Dept.; Parness, PJ, Freedman, Davis, JJ)