Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Landlord claims long-time tenant lives overseas
From the NY Post:
A developer is trying to boot an elderly concentration-camp survivor from his rent-stabilized Manhattan pad by claiming that the man really still lives in Romania — in the small shack seized from his family in the 1940s.
But tenant Lucien Orasel Tomberg, 73, says he hasn’t set foot in his family’s home since Romania’s Communist government took it over in 1948 and sent him, his three brothers and parents to a concentration camp.
Tomberg was the only one who survived.
“It is no small irony that the landlord has seized on the Banul Manta property as a basis for attempting to evict me from my apartment,” Tomberg says in Manhattan Supreme Court papers.
“It is vaguely reminiscent of a very dark episode in human history, of which I and my family were most unfortunate victims.”
At stake is Tomberg’s sprawling two-bedroom apartment at 1200 Fifth Ave., which its owner wants to convert to a million-dollar condo.
The longtime tenant pays $800 a month for the pad, which comes with views of Central Park; a similar unit is on the market for $1.7 million.
The Chetrit Group — the real-estate empire involved in the $1.3 billion sale of Chicago’s Willis Tower — owns the pre-war building through a subsidiary, 1200 Fifth Associates LLC, city property records show. The company began converting the apartments to condos in 2007.
The landlord claims that Tomberg should be kicked out because the cheap pad is not “his primary residence.”
The suit says Tomberg really lives at Banul Manta NR 79 Sector 1 in Bucharest.
11 comments:
Typical lousy reporting.
In 1948 he would have been 4.
When did he come to America? How long has he had this apartment? Why does he need a rent stabilized apartment? Does he have a rental income from this (NYC) property? (AirBnB?) How is he listed for the property in his country? How often does he go there? Does he get rental income from that? Who else lives with him? Does he sublet? Does he expect to pass on the rent controlled apartment?
The fact that he has a hard luck story doesn't make him more or less legally entitled to that apartment. If he really doesn't live there he should pay market rate or leave.
This is a little disingenuous.
He was a 'concentration camp survivor'. Not a Nazi concentration camp. A camp run by the Communists.
Didn't they use to be our allies and a favorite of the Democrat party? Until November 8, 2016 anyway.
If he is 73, then he was born in 1944. Hard to believe that any babies were born in concentration camps.
Yeah, it's funny how the Democratic party went from loving commies to accusing the Republican President of being a Russian stooge in the space of a year.
Holding out for a Good buyout deal???
Must be 100s of older A list actor's who live & work in Hollywood 9 months a year own these (pay $400-$800 a month rent) and sub rent them.
Come the 3 month (Jun-Aug) shooting & party season in New York they use them.
The landlords really getting screwed because the heat, electric (all the large plasma TVs in these apartments)maintenance, doorman and tax share is more then the rent.
What a douchebag.
He compares being in a concentration camp to someone trying to get him out of a rent stabilized apartment? The fact that the current going rate for that apartment would pay the rent on his apartment for 177 years doesn't faze him?
Very hard to feel sorry for him. And I don't.
For christs sake, he is 73 yrs old , hoorah for tenant rights!
How can anyone root for the landlord? I am sure the landlord has a ritzy place, and has booted many people using shady tactics.
It's like a safe deposit box. You put your stuff in and get a key, so if your country fails, you escape to USA
He compares being in a concentration camp
Dude, the Ceausescu regime and the ones before him were running concentration camps especially the one called the Danube Canal. Lots of educated people died in those camps, mainly the ones that were a threat to the communist regime.
The Nazis were killers and so were the communists.
The landlord is one of the biggest scumlord predator developers in the city. Anyone heard of Chetrit's abominable Bronx is Burning gilded age party celebrating their new groundbreaking in the south bronx and their idiotic campaign to remain said area into the "Piano District".
I am surprised by the condemnation of the tenant. When the efforts to get him out just smack of dirty tactics and creepy and invasive hired detective work. I wonder if Chetrit hired Palantir to find dubious information on this guy.
(Sarc) makes a good point that this guy wants a better buyout, which I am sure Chetrit had done before. And why not, for another anon said, this will be as like many of the other luxury condos and the majority of these hideous towers that have been built in the past 5 years will be safety deposit boxes for stingy oligarchs.
The new skyline is going to black.
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