Tenant Claims Landlord Responsible for Noisy Neighbor

Tenant-shareholder sued landlord cooperative corporation. She claimed that landlord rented the apartment above her to an individual who caused continuous noise for six months and that landlord took no steps to abate the nuisance despite tenant's repeated complaints. Tenant claimed that landlord had previously rented other apartments in the building to the same tenant, resulting in noise complaints by other residents. The court denied landlord's request to dismiss the case without a trial. Landlord appealed and lost. Generally, a tenant can't sue a landlord who didn't create a nuisance and who had surrendered control of an apartment to a tenant. But, in this case, landlord didn't present any facts to counter tenant's specific claim and didn't even identify the upstairs tenant in question or produce a copy of the lease to show that it had surrendered possession to a tenant. So there were questions of fact as to whether landlord knowingly created the nuisance or surrendered control of the apartment, requiring a trial.

Clarke v. 6485 & 6495 Broadway Apartment Inc.: 2014 NY Slip Op 07961, 2014 WL 6391170 (App. Div. 1 Dept.; 11/18/14; Friedman, JP, Acosta, Saxe, Manzanet-Daniels, Gische, JJ)