Landlord Must Provide Heat to Loft Tenants

Facts: Loft tenants sued landlord to get correction of building violations, including landlord's failure to provide heat. Landlord claimed it wasn't required to provide heat and that even if at some point it was, tenants had given up the right to have landlord provide it. Court: Tenants win. The building was unquestionably an interim multiple dwelling under the loft law. The Housing Maintenance Code required landlord to provide heat. Tenants' leases also stated that landlord would provide heat ''when and as required by law.'' Even if these leases had expired, the terms carried over into any month-to-month tenancies that followed. And tenants didn't knowingly give up their right to heat. They didn't know that landlord was supposed to provide heat until they complained to the Loft Board about conditions in general.

Doukas v. Pravda Brothers Realty Co.: NYLJ, p. 22, col. 4 (7/26/95) (Civ. Ct. NY; Wendt, J)