Tenant Claims Retaliatory Eviction

Landlord sued to evict month-to-month tenant from a two-family house after delivering a 30-day termination notice. Landlord claimed that tenant was unregulated and had remained in the apartment after his two-year lease expired on Jan. 31, 2012. Tenant claimed that he had renewed the lease. The court disagreed. Tenant had asked for a two-year renewal and landlord offered only a one-year renewal. Tenant clearly had altered the renewal lease document to make it appear that he had been offered a renewal lease expiring in 2014 instead of 2013. Tenant never signed the lease when offered and there was no current lease in effect. Tenant also claimed retaliatory eviction.

The court ruled for tenant on that issue, and dismissed the case. Tenant had withheld rent to enforce his rights under the warranty of habitability. Landlord could have started a holdover proceeding in February 2012, after tenant's lease expired. But landlord didn't send tenant a notice to quit until late August 2012 and did so because tenant refused to pay his rent that month. It appeared that landlord wouldn't have started the eviction case if tenant had paid his rent. Given that tenant's share of the rent was determined by NYCHA and set forth in landlord's HAP contract with NYCHA, which was still in effect, landlord could have sought tenant's share of the rent in a nonpayment proceeding. By electing instead to start a holdover proceeding, landlord sought to retaliate against tenant for withholding rent, and wouldn't otherwise have started this case.

Barr v. Huggins: 2013 NY Slip Op 23296, 2013 WL 4766727 (Civ. Ct. Bronx; 8/8/13; Lehrer, J)