Lease Signed Without HPD Approval Was Void

The City of New York owned a building that was net leased to tenants' association under HPD's Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program. Tenants' association then became the building's landlord. In 2004, while she was president of the tenants' association, tenant occupied Apartment 4B. Apartment 4A next door was vacant. Tenant asked landlord for a second lease to the vacant apartment so she would have more room to care for her two disabled children. She claimed that she had received oral permission from HPD to rent the second apartment. Landlord gave tenant the lease. Later she connected the two apartments.

In 2010, landlord sued tenant, and asked the court to revoke the lease for the second apartment because tenant never received written permission from HPD. Tenant argued that written permission wasn't needed and that landlord had waited too long to seek revocation of the lease.

The court ruled for landlord. Under the TIL program, written permission is required from HPD before landlord could rent any vacant apartment. No written permission was obtained in this case. And it didn't matter that landlord waited more than six years to seek revocation of the lease agreement. New York's highest court recently had ruled that an action claiming that a contract was void from the outset wasn't subject to the six-year statute of limitations on actions based on breach of contract.

408 East 10th Street Tenants Association v. Naspral: Index No. 108910/2010, NYLJ 1202622169686 (Sup. Ct. NY; 9/11/13; Kern, J)