Rent Abatement Started When HPD Inspection Report Confirmed Conditions

Landlord sued to evict tenant for nonpayment of rent. Tenant claimed breach of the warranty of habitability. The court ruled for tenant in part, giving him some rent abatement. Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant claimed that the rent abatement should go back to 2000, when he gave landlord's building employees verbal notice of apartment conditions needing repair. But the trial court reasonably found that tenant's testimony on this claim was vague and insufficient. Landlord and tenant also had settled a prior nonpayment proceeding in January 2015 and that settlement agreement said nothing about conditions needing repair. The trial court reasonably set the starting date for a rent abatement as Feb. 11, 2016, which was the date of an HPD inspection report confirming certain conditions.

227J LLC v. Barker: Index No. 17-147, NYLJ No. 1202788479313 (App. T. 1 Dept.; 5/25/27; Schoenfeld, JP, Shulman, Gonzalez, JJ)