The Real Estate Board of New York and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development want changes made to a contentious bill that would make it easier for tenants to sue their landlords for harassment.
The bill, Introduction 627, which is currently wending its way through the City Council, has garnered attention because of the widespread ramifications it would have on the landlord-tenant battles and because it has a rival bill.
Steve Spinola, president of REBNY, told The Real Deal that his organization has recommended changes to Bill 627 that include requiring tenants to have any complaints against their landlords established as actual violations by HPD before proceeding with a suit.
Without this step, he said, tenants would be able to bring meritless suits against their landlords, costing them money and court delays, and forcing them into settlements even if they are not guilty of a violation.
Spinola pointed out that the city’s Office of Court Administration was also opposed to the bill because he said judges would be stuck trying to determine whether a violation had indeed occurred, a step that would create an unnecessary burden. “That job belongs with HPD,” he argued. Mayor Bloomberg has not publicly said where he stands.
Neill Coleman, an HPD spokesman, said the agency largely agrees with the proposed bill in its current form and does not support REBNY’s changes. But he said HPD wants some of the language in the bill to be changed.
As it stands now, the bill would allow landlords to assert that interruptions in basic services were not the result of their intentional or grossly negligent conduct. HPD is proposing new language that would require landlords to show that they had acted in good faith to fix disruptions and had not created an unpleasant environment that caused a “lawful” tenant to move out.
“While we believe that there are certain reasonable defenses, the current language would have made it very hard for a tenant to prove that the interruption of services was due to gross negligence,” said Coleman.
The bill could pass in some form, given its backing from Council Speaker Christine Quinn and from 34 of the body’s 51 members. The council’s buildings committee will hold another hearing on the matter in early February.
But both REBNY and the Rent Stabilization Association, another landlord lobbying group, are not giving up without a fight. “We call it the landlord harassment bill,” Spinola said.
In addition to the changes REBNY is promoting to Bill 627, a rival bill, Introduction 638, which is more landlord-friendly, is being floated. That bill, which is being sponsored by Council Members Leroy Comrie and Thomas White Jr., would shift the balance of power in the opposite direction of 627 and make it easier for landlords to sue tenants for making repeated complaints that have no merit. But it hasn’t gained the same traction.
Council Member Daniel Garodnick, a co-sponsor of the tenant-backed bill, said the council has “spent a lot of time getting intro 627 right.
“While we may make technical changes to the legislation, the spirit of the bill will remain intact,” he said.
“Furthermore, the idea that this law will create a flood of frivolous cases in housing court is something that we simply don’t accept,” he added. “Tenants generally do not have the time or inclination to spend a day in housing court, and will do that only in extreme circumstances.”
Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, another sponsor of Bill 627, appeared on The Real Deal webcast last month to discuss the issue. She said that as it stands now, tenants have no legal recourse for harassment.
Bill 627, she said, includes language that would classify certain behavior as harassment, such as using threats to force a tenant to accept a buyout and vacate an apartment, repeated discontinuation of essential services, repeated baseless court actions, and removing belongings from a tenant’s unit. If the bill passes in its current form, fines for landlords will range from $1,000 to $5,000.
Landlord-tenant lawyers are coming down on both sides of the debate. Adam Leitman Bailey, a lawyer who specializes in real estate, opposes Bill 627. He said it would lead to “thousands of lawsuits, millions of dollars in legal fees.” He also noted that there are already laws in place to protect tenants.
Another landlord-tenant lawyer, Luigi Rosabianca, a principal at Rosabianca & Associates, said he thinks 627 could make the imbalance between landlords and tenants more equitable.
According to Mark-Viverito, 627 does have provisions to ensure landlords are not bombarded with repeated suits from the same tenants. If a judge determines that a tenant has brought regular unwarranted complaints, he or she will be barred from taking further court action, the council member said.