Advice on Situation

New landlord is locked in, so no worry with that landlord at the present time.

If you were a bit smarter, you'd leave April 30, not May 1.

I am confused. Your lease with your current landlord ends when exactly? What do you mean by 'living out' your security deposit? Are you saying you are planning to stay beyond your lease-end date?

This should help bramstar: http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/30551-bad-situation-with-my-landlord

My girlfriend is concerned about how this will affect her ability or our ability to rent moving forward. If we move to another city after we vacate our new place will this cause us to have a hard time finding a new rental? We have never once had a problem ever renting from someone in the past, nor have we had such tension with a relationship like this.

Both of us are on the lease, and I don't want to make decisions that negatively affect her. However I don't think its worth letting her have two more months of rent and hold our security deposit for a "reasonable" amount of time which could easily be 30-60 days. I don't however want to deal with the courts but seem to be left no choice unless I just want to fork over more rent for a place I am moving out of in 16 days.

Why exactly are you doing this?

enginerd, I informed you of your rights w.r.t. illegal conversion by the LL on your deposit on that other thread. Others said that perhaps you don't want to escalate things by filing a small claims suit to establish your right to have your deposit returned immediately, above any other claims the LL may have on you.

I could smell this shit a mile away, but now that it is clear to all that the LL is going legal on you, why don't you file the small claims suit? That will establish your right, per precedent, to have the security deposit returned to you immediately because of illegal conversion. You don't need to follow through on the suit. Just file it to establish your right. Then you will have a legal leg to stand on w.r.t. why you aren't paying rent, because you are owed an immediate return of the deposit.

Discuss with your lawyer, of course.

And if she pulls any of that shit with filing anything against you, explain to her how you'll actually follow through with getting your deposit back and make her chase you for the rent per legal precedent.

>You don't need to follow through on the suit. Just file it to establish your right.

What in the world does that mean?

>explain to her how you'll actually follow through with getting your deposit back

Immediately, right? That deposit will come back immediately, snap of the finger...

>and make her chase you for the rent per legal precedent.

Yeah, this guy created the problem, then he runs away from it because he couldn't handle the heat. This is funny.

>My girlfriend is concerned about how this will affect her ability or our ability to rent moving forward. If we move to another city after we vacate our new place will this cause us to have a hard time finding a new rental? We have never once had a problem ever renting from someone in the past, nor have we had such tension with a relationship like this.

If you rent exclusively from one-off/small-time landlords, you won't likely have a problem because generally they aren't checking these type of court records other than getting a general credit report. You have no problem renting from a one-off/small-time landlord, right?

Ah, thanks, HB. Didn't realize this was the same situation.

@NYCMatt I am doing this because she has two months security and we have less than a month left before we move.

I suspect she is filing eviction proceedings because she must think we want to stay beyond our May 31 lease end date and not pay rent. We just want to leave and not give her any more money because she has 2 months security which should well cover the remaining responsibility on our end.

>My girlfriend is concerned about how this will affect her ability or our ability to rent moving forward.<

It should follow you, security isnt there for "living out".

Its there to cover damages and to be refunded once you've vacated and the inspection completed.

>I suspect she is filing eviction proceedings because she must think we want to stay beyond our May 31 lease end date and not pay rent. We just want to leave and not give her any more money because she has 2 months security which should well cover the remaining responsibility on our end.

If you have paid your month of April, she can not file an eviction proceeding.

"living out" is illegal. Read what deanc says. The landlord can ruin your credit history.

engi: "she must think..."
Have you not communicated with her in writing by e-mail?

Did he or did he not pay rent for the month of April?

inonada: He can't file for "conversion" until after he has moved out, with proper notice as per the lease.
Because the landlord is not converting his money into being her money yet.

Truth, don't argue with inododo, he did a google search and read a case online.

>> "inonada: He can't file for "conversion" until after he has moved out, with proper notice as per the lease.
Because the landlord is not converting his money into being her money yet."

Truth, on the other thread the OP said that the LL has openly admitted to commingling the deposit with personal funds. This establishes conversion, which cannot be remedied with un-commingling as soon as OP takes action.

>Truth, on the other thread the OP said that the LL has openly admitted

In writing?

>This establishes conversion, which cannot be remedied with un-commingling as soon as OP takes action.

At which point a security deposit of equivalent is due according to the lease

I do think that this link proves that a security deposit in a brownstone is to be handled as a trust. It is New York General Obligations Law.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAWS+&QUERYDATA=$$GOB7-103$$@TXGOB07-103+&LIST=LAW+&BROWSER=BROWSER+&TOKEN=42933097+&TARGET=VIEW

I did read about the case where a conversion was considered due to co-mingling of funds. I have no clue how you go about pursuing that with the courts. Considering it's greater than $5000 I'd imagine it isn't via small claims court. Also convincing a lawyer to talk to you about this "small" amount of money is turning out to be rather hard. They are frankly mistified that the landlord is evening pursuing any legal action at all.

Most situations apparently where a tenant just says "keep my security" result in no action. That is what I have been told at least, I have to say though this sure seems like quite a bit of action on the landlord's part.

Regardless we'll have to see how she handles it. I have not paid for April or May rent as she is holding two months of security. I'd move on April 31 but no where to go for the night - the new place isn't available till May 1. Also the moving company wants to charge for two moves or a storage fee equivalent to almost a second move since the truck is tied up for two days instead of just one.

inonada: Did the landlord openly admit to that in writing?
Otherwise she's going to nonada about it.
And the OP is going to be paying a lawyer at least $350 an hour, over the course of many hours, just to get to that point in the proceedings.
And although I'm not a lawyer, I think that conversion in this case can't be filed until after the OP has moved out. Because until they do move the landlord theoretically has time to return funds to him.
Even if she co-mingled.

The OP is moving out before the lease is up, without it seems, proper notice.

And why, on the first of another month, when they should at least move out by the last day of April.

>Considering it's greater than $5000 I'd imagine it isn't via small claims court.
Correct, though you could still sue in Small Claims Court but have to limit your claim to $5000. You can provide evidence of a greater amount, you just can't recover the greater amount. But pursue it, and at the point of a judgment, you'd immediately need to correct your lease by making a deposit of the equivalent amount.

>Most situations apparently where a tenant just says "keep my security" result in no action

Quite possible, but as I said before, this lady knows all the tricks. She's been a landlady for a long time, dealt with all sorts of New York tenants, including you, and you've already given her 14 days of notice of your intentions. You may have all sorts of feelings, conversations, etc. that you think justify your case, but she has the hard fact that you haven't paid your rent for the current month. She also has proof that she's replaced appliances during your tenancy, making it difficult for you to make your claims about her not doing repairs or being unreasonable.

>Regardless we'll have to see how she handles it.

What happens on April 31 when she changes the locks with all of your stuff in it and then refuses access to the building to your locksmith who comes to unlock it? Not that that's legal, but real estate is a dirty game, and you are the first to create this dirty situation. So you call the police to get you access, she says to the police that she thought you abandoned the place because you last paid rent in March, or some other BS. You spend the evening before your move in this fight, it's not fun.

>I have not paid for April or May rent as she is holding two months of security.

If she had 1 month of security, would it have been ok to you to just not pay 1 month?

>I'd move on April 31 but no where to go for the night - the new place isn't available till May 1. Also the moving company wants to charge for two moves or a storage fee equivalent to almost a second move since the truck is tied up for two days instead of just one.

Plus an overnight of bedbugs infiltrating your belongings. Surprised you couldn't negotiate the extra day from your new landlord, or is the market really that tight?

I think you need a sit down with your landlord and work it out. Take your photos and the like, but you are going to be a mess for the next 16 days worrying about all of this and what she could do, and then worrying about the situation for some period of time afterwards, your credit score, will she sue you, etc. etc.. You are better off paying what you owe, and then actually pursuing the Small Claims case afterwards if she doesn't behave by returning an appropriate amount.

>And why, on the first of another month, when they should at least move out by the last day of April.

I suggestd this too, but realistically it doesn't matter, since there wasn't sufficient notice to find a replacement tenant, May is a gone month anyway that's going to be against the OP's win/loss columns.

Yes, it's just bad planning on the part of engi.
He needs a better exit plan for his next rental.

Factor in an extra month in current apt.,if you can't get LL.to agree to give you (or charge you for) an extra few days. and you always need to give notice ( I would, as soon as I started looking for a new rental. In the rental I have now, the L.L. wrote in a "Good-guy" clause. I can move before my lease is up and he gives me my security back. I still have to give him notice. That's because I told him I'm renting while looking for an apt. to buy.)

It's difficult to flow smoothly from one rental to the next without some transition time for the actual move.

I think in the last thread he said he gave notice and she agreed. Then he turns bad guy and doesn't pay the rent for April.

Ah, engi:
Is that true?
If so, pay up.

If I were the new landlord reading this I would run a mile and hope for a way out. This is certainly not the kind of tenant I would want in my property, If we all disregard rules, laws and societal expectations then will be chaos.

I have a feeling if we heard from the landlord, we would see an entire different perspective to this story.

How very true, Matsui.

We, here on se occasionally cause chaos. societal expectations be damned!

>If I were the new landlord reading this I would run a mile and hope for a way out.

Why does the landlord need to run away? The landlord can't lawfully prevent the tenant from removing his belongings from the apartment, but he can prevent the movers from having access to the building. Certainly for a non-paying tenant, the landlord can't legally evict without a court's permission, but for a non-paying tenant he could prohibit access by commercial third parties to the common areas. Even if that's too extreme, the landlord could require all sorts of advance notice before allowing moving large items such as furniture through the common areas (heck, she could simply schedule her own repairs of something in the building that day that could delay or prevent the move-out), could require advanced proof of insurance from anyone getting access to the building and common areas, oh, all sorts of good games. Plus, the tenant better be there for the entirety of the moving, because one call to the police gets the movers questioned unless the tenant is there to say "they are with me".

None of these are the stupid suggestions that NYCMatt had the other week like tampering with ConEd, and certainly there's no grounds for arresting someone as he suggested, but the ways the landlord can make life difficult for the tenant ...
and given that the landlord accommodated the tenant by allowing early termination of the lease, has evidence of replacing appliances during the term of the lease at the tenant's request, ... "well your honor, I've put the security deposit in my personal account for every tenant and I've been a landlord for 20 years and never had a problem and didn't know you needed to do anything different, your honor because I'm not a lawyer, just a simple landlady. I rely on this rent to pay my property taxes since my late husband died.
I only had trouble with this out of towner because he's spoiled and not used to living in New York, in fact I bent over backwards to accept him vs. my normal tenant screening (and I'll never be so gullible again) even though he had really bad credit but I reluctantly agreed to let him cover his application shortfall by paying 2 months security ... which he takes the first opportunity to screw me out of. Plus he damaged the place - I told him this is an old building and you can't hang heavy things on the wall, and here's a photo of the TV he hung on the walls, and here's a photo of the holes. Your honor, I've done nothing intentionally wrong, but here's a tenant, the first tenant I had a problem with, who expects that his $2000 a month entitles him to the amount of space he would get in his hometown of Podunk, and who took the first oppotunity to cheat me when I was going out of my way to be kind to him.

"

enginerd... if i recall correctly a landlord in a building with four units or less which is their only investment in NY state is NOT required to put your security in an interest bearing account and IS allowed to commingle funds.... this is a specific exception to the general rule of thumb....I would tread carefully...

"inonada: Did the landlord openly admit to that in writing? Otherwise she's going to nonada about it."

Truth, I believe the OP has email stating so. Even if he does not, it won't much matter in court. She will not have responded to requests from tenant to show where the deposit is being held, she will not have provided notice per law, she will not produce records in court demonstrating what happened to the deposit check, etc. A judge will sniff that evasive BS from a mile away and assume accordingly. I remember reading one of the case laws where the LL pulled a "nonada", and the conclusion was that conversion was assumed given the "nonada" evidence and the failure of the LL to provide records of the deposit to the tenant and the court. It's a check, after all, not a pile of cash.

nycbrokerdax, if you spend a few minutes reading the statute posted by the OP you'd see:

1) Requirement not to comingle is universal.
2) Requirement to pay interest if in bank account, minus admin fee, is universal.
3) Requirement to place in prevailing-interest-rate bank account is only for 6+ units.

Putting money into a separate bank account is just one way not to comingle, but not doing so does not absolve LL of requirement not to comingle.

"I did read about the case where a conversion was considered due to co-mingling of funds. I have no clue how you go about pursuing that with the courts. Considering it's greater than $5000 I'd imagine it isn't via small claims court."

Just make a claim for $5000, forget about the last $200. If you go to the small claims website, you'll see what it takes. It's all pretty easy, the courts are used to dealing with clueless plaintiffs and defendants. Show up with emails demonstrating the LL's failure to segregate and/or repeated refusal to provide info on where segregated funds are being held, you'll be fine. Show up with your statutes & case laws, you'll be Perry f-ing Mason comparatively in there. The judge will have a good chuckle, because he/she will know it already. The idiot LL will come in with all sorts of arguments about how she's owed money for this and that, you will politely disagree and state that it is all moot at this moment by pointing to case law stating that no such arguments may be heard until she first returns deposit.

300_mercer: "living out" is illegal. Read what deanc says. The landlord can ruin your credit history.

The LL effectively stole the deposit, and the tenant has a legal right to its immediate return by taking action.

>The LL effectively stole

Is that like strenuously objecting?

>and the tenant has a legal right to its immediate return by taking action.
Action = court. That's it.

>If you go to the small claims website, you'll see what it takes. It's all pretty easy, the courts are used to dealing with clueless plaintiffs and defendants. Show up with emails demonstrating the LL's failure to segregate and/or repeated refusal to provide info on where segregated funds are being held, you'll be fine. Show up with your statutes & case laws, you'll be Perry f-ing Mason comparatively in there. The judge will have a good chuckle, because he/she will know it already.

You've previously stated that you've never been to Small Claims Court, and that you've never even been involved in litigation of any kind. But I guess you watched Perry Mason on TV so you can make that claim.

Here's a fun and short one. Tenants sign lease, wants out and requests security deposit back 8 days after signing (before movin in). LL returns part of deposit, taking out reasonable costs. LL admits to commingling funds. Court rules that deposit must be returned despite obvious breach of lease.

http://www.courts.state.ny.us/Reporter/3dseries/2004/2004_50220.htm

@huntersburg not sure why you have to attack a guy for posting on an open forum, but just to get the record straight my credit is perfect. I happen to be a private business owner and for that reason people are hesitant to rent to me since my income is dependent on my ability to get clients and retain them. I spend large bits of my day negotiating contracts with much more value than the rent I pay for this sub-standard apartment. Regardless I just wanted some advice from others and didn't seek to be criticized by someone like yourself. Easy to be a tough guy on an internet based forum though don't you think.

Also I have quite a bit of dated communication where I listed every problem in the apartment on the first two weeks of living here. Most of it has been unaddressed. Things as simple as door handles were left unaddressed for well over 5 months. Only when a real estate agent asked her to make some of the changes I had pointed out did it get corrected.

Also the electrical issue is very well documented. She had two hall sconces which were in disrepair from day one and unusable. They were replaced 3 months later after making requests. We focused on the fridge first because it would fill with water. That took approximately 10 days once we really started pressing for it. It isn't that she bent over backwards to help me, its that she needed to do the right thing. Also the people who moved out could have damaged these things and she took no time to inspect their situation before we moved in. I'd love to research if she has had a problem in the past, but I bet there are other unsatisfied tenants floating around out there.

Finally, with respect to her normal interview / tenant approval process. It took well over a week and required me to get two credit checks, print them and bring them to her. Print off bank statements of every bank account I have and my girlfriend to show previous income and current established money in the bank. She was hesitant to rent to us since we only had about 60k in the bank between us. So if that is bad credit, man I just don't think that it'll hold up so well as an argument against us.

I plan to try to talk to her tomorrow to find out if she is aware of our move out. I think she is moving forward with this because she is worried we are planning to stay beyond the amended lease end date.

I have represented myself in court twice on cases not worth having a lawyer. Won both times by finding relevant laws & regulations & making it easy for the judge to apply common sense. Really easy once you get over your fear of it, or you could live your life without ever trying to assert your legal rights.

"But pursue it, and at the point of a judgment, you'd immediately need to correct your lease by making a deposit of the equivalent amount."

Life is full of uncertainties, one has to make judgement calls all the time.

On the one hand we have a bunch of case law from www.courts.state.ny.us repeatedly asserting that the commingled deposit must be returned first and cannot be used against alleged breaches of lease, which needs to be decided separately.

On the other hand we have a greyed-out Internet troll with little understanding of anything insisiting on how the court will work without anything to back it up.

Gee, how does one decide in the face of such uncertainty?

>@huntersburg not sure why you have to attack a guy for posting on an open forum, but just to get the record straight my credit is perfect. I happen to be a private business owner and for that reason people are hesitant to rent to me since my income is dependent on my ability to get clients and retain them. I spend large bits of my day negotiating contracts with much more value than the rent I pay for this sub-standard apartment. Regardless I just wanted some advice from others and didn't seek to be criticized by someone like yourself. Easy to be a tough guy on an internet based forum though don't you think.

I read your "bitch landlady" blog before you password protected it. But YOU don't want to be criticized? That's funny.

>Things as simple as door handles were left unaddressed for well over 5 months.

Petty complaint.

>Finally, with respect to her normal interview / tenant approval process. It took well over a week and required me to get two credit checks, print them and bring them to her. Print off bank statements of every bank account I have and my girlfriend to show previous income and current established money in the bank. She was hesitant to rent to us since we only had about 60k in the bank between us. So if that is bad credit, man I just don't think that it'll hold up so well as an argument against us.

The proof is in the fact that you acquiesced to 2 months deposit. None of the rest matters ... if you had such good credentials, why did you agree to 2 months?

>I have represented myself in court twice on cases not worth having a lawyer. Won both times by finding relevant laws & regulations & making it easy for the judge to apply common sense. Really easy once you get over your fear of it, or you could live your life without ever trying to assert your legal rights.

Totally contradictory to your statements some months ago.

>On the other hand we have a greyed-out Internet troll with little understanding of anything insisiting on how the court will work without anything to back it up.

On the other hand, we have an Internet troll self acknowledge "no nada" who previously claimed no legal or litigation experience, but all of a sudden today, he knows how "Perry Mason" would do it, and when that doesn't seem sufficient, well, he's been in court too.

> The proof is in the fact that you acquiesced to 2 months deposit. None of the rest matters ... if you had such good credentials, why did you agree to 2 months?

You must not have a girlfriend or a wife or some significant other who expresses feelings to you of something they desire.

I did what I could do to sway the landlord to take us when we applied to live here. There were 4 other couples who were all putting in competing bids.

So your claim is that your girlfriend or wife or significant other's expression of feelings coerced you in this situation?

enginerd, huntersburg is a troll who likes getting reactions. No need to respond to him unless it entertains you.

enginerd, have you googled inododo's steps to finding an apartment? It's laughable, but would say that you did everything wrong.

I've advised enginerd, on the original thread, and even at the start of this thread, to try to work it out, and at the same time to take measures to protect himself with photos, etc.only in the event that the landlord refuses - enginerd unfortunately retaliated by not paying the rent which now puts him in breach. Inododo immediatelly takes the confrontational approach and advises the poster to immediately file a lawsuit, the effect of which inododo believes he knows, but that's all under inododo's "Perry Mason" fantasy.

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/25660
inonada
about 13 months ago
"I know little about the specifics of the contract, less about the law, and nothing about litigation."

Isn't that a big mystery, how both the statement above and the one from 13 months ago can be true?

I can't keep track of what happened with the OP on his other threads. When comments on the same situation are on more than one discussion thread I need these reminders.

inonada: That may be true but I still don't think that the OP can take legal action until he has moved out.
As for the repairs not made in a timely fashion while he was living there -- they were repaired. Even if the response from the landlord was not to his satisfaction. It seems that the OP was having problems with the landlord and in the matter of her not making repairs it was for things like appliances, lighting fixtures and
door handles. If these things were dangerous the court might care. If the lack of repairs caused him to be forced to move out.

engi: forget the interpersonal dispute on here between huntersburg and inonada. If huntersburg is making you feel attacked, you don't want to go to court. Unless inonada offers to accompany you there and represents you.
If he does it for free, even better.

It's good that you have e-mails.But STOP TALKING TO HER. AT THIS POINT YOU NEED EVERYTHING IN WRITING BY E-MAIL. If you think she is worried then state that she has no need to worry. That you will be doing this now (today, Sunday as opposed to tomorrow) is a bit late to try but better than never.

You already have found a new apt. You didn't exactly give proper notice. If you have a "bad landlady" blog you've had the time to do the writing.
Also, the excuse that the previous tenants could have damaged things before you moved in is not going to fly. You see things when you look at the apt. before you move in. That's when you ask that they be repaired. Don't sign lease until they are. Take photos of what is in need of repair with date stamp, and e-mail to L.L. Same for after you move in. You should have a video with the condition of the apt. before move-in day or at the latest on move-in day, before the movers enter the apt. That is your comparison for future things that need repair.

Next time don't try to move out of a rental, directly into another new rental, in one day. This will give you good experience for the future, when you sell an apt. and don't have time to find another to buy in time to close.( I'm wishing something really good for you here, engi.)
You, as I did, will have to pay to put things in storage, and rent an apt. to live in while you are looking.
I suggest Oz Moving and Storage. Keith B.always wrote good things about them here on se and I decided to use them. They are very good and I feel that my belongings are being well taken care of in storage (they have bedbug sniffing dogs that check the trucks and storage facility).

The best thing would be to straighten it out with your landlady and have it in writing in e-mails. She probably doesn't want to file an eviction on you. She would have done it by now and not claimed that she is going to do it.

well I guess that's it, appreciate all the great and helpful feedback. I'll just have to see how things pan out.

I guess my mentality towards fair treatment stems from my generations approach to everything. Us millennials expect a lot, and the greater the generation gap grows with Landlords and Tenants the more of this sort of thing that will happen.

Amen, engi.
You have a lot of life and living in front of you. Learn the lessons and grow older with accumulated wisdom.

Your landlord agreed to amend your lease to let you out early, so you were able to work that out, why didn't you just continue to mutually negotiate the situation instead of taking the aggressive and improper action to not pay legitimate rent due? All the other stuff from bad lighting to calling her a bitch could have been forgotten as you both move on. But now you are going to be stuck in a dispute for some time, a dispute that you don't really want.

He's going to e-mail the landlady. He gets it now. He learned a lesson. He's young.

"Unless inonada offers to accompany you there and represents you. If he does it for free, even better."

Sounds fun. Where do I sign up?

On the "bad landlord" blog.

I'd love to be represented in court by someone who knows little about the law and nothing about litigation, let alone how to resolve a dispute before getting to litigation.

But then again, if that person watched a lot of Perry Mason on TV, it might work out.

I'm Della, Perry's smart legal secty.
para. Whatever she was.

Della Streeteasy.