From the Daily News:Forcing tenants to live in squalor can sock a landlord with hefty fines, but in this case it could send the owner to jail.
Tenants of 1585 E. 172nd St. in Soundview went to court more than a year ago over collapsing floors and leaking, crumbling ceilings, black mold and rat infestations.
"They kept saying they would send someone to make repairs but they never did," said tenant association President Martha Castro, whose kitchen floor is slowly collapsing from numerous leaks caused by damaged water pipes.
Castro's building is part of the infamous Ocelot portfolio, 25 structures purchased by Ocelot Capital with inflated mortgages at the height of the real estate boom, and then abandoned to disrepair when the company went under.
Castro's building and five other Ocelot properties were transferred to Hunter Property Management, owned by Sam Suzuki, who made the Village Voice's list of the city's 10 worst landlords. Two of the buildings are on the city's list of 100 worst-maintained buildings.
The tenants' lawsuit dragged on until last month, when Hunter's lawyer quit the case and was never replaced. With Hunter a no-show at a hearing at the end of March, the judge held both Hunter and Suzuki in contempt of court.
Unless the landlord makes the necessary repairs, the judge could go further at a hearing at the end of this month and issue a civil imprisonment order against Suzuki.
4 comments:
This is the guy who's supposed to be acquiring the RKO Keith's Flushing Theater from Boymelgreen in a "friendly foreclosure" proceeding.
This is also the same guy who gave money to Mr. Comptroller John Liu when he ran for city council.
His "Bowne Tree" apartment complex still can't get a C of O because of fire code violations.
Those condos, nevertheless, are for sale should some sucker be dumb enough to want one!
What about contempt of humanity?
why doesn't the judge put the building in rem & hand it to the tenants? why is this taking so long?
freeze all his properties in NYC.
This is not all true what is being said of mr suzuki he had being fixing these five building.put tenant don't pay rent for over two years how do you expect he get money from for repais marta castro should be hold in contept to for being a liar.
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