Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in New York

Re: Broken Elevator and Hot Water Problems

I was reviewing past questions to this site and came across your interesting question.

I apologize for the delayed response and hope that the following will prove helpful.

There are two statutes which to some extent fit your description: Section 302-a of the NYS Multiple Dwelling Law and Article 7-A of the NYS Real Property Actions And Proceedings Law.

Section 302-a of New York State's Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL) alows tenants living in multiple dwelling builidings in cities with populations over four hundred thousand (including New York City) to stop paying rent when the landlord has not rectified sufficiently serious "rent impairing" violations which have persisted for over six months.

The statute imposes a requirement of notice to proper agency authorities of such violations

and the conditions must be either fire hazards or a "serious threat to the life, health, or safety of occupants".

There is a list of what kind of conditions qualify for this rent abatement which is updated and modified and I do not have access to that list at this time so I cannot say offhand whether your elevator and hot water problems qualify.

Moreover, therew are two problematic aspects of this law: (1) the six month waiting period of living with these hazards before qualifying for the rent abatement; (2) if the landlord sues for the rent unpaid under this statute, then the tenant is reuqired deposit all rent due with the court clerk at the time of response to the landlord's nonpayment petition.

An Article 7-A proceeding is another option available to New York City residents (and resident in some other specified areas: Nassau conty, Rockland, Suffolk County and Westchester County). This refers to Article 7-A of the Real Property Actions And Proceedings Law (RPAPL) which provides that if at least one-third of the tenat occupants of the property join together they may bring a lawsuit, an Article 7-A proceeding, demanding that the court appoint an administrator to collect rents and perform the neccessary repairs, i.e., the rents will be depaotied with the administrator and withheld from the landlord until the repairs are made. The needed repairs must again involve serious conditions, which have persisted for over five days, e.g.,lack of running water, rodent infestation, lack of heat.

After the repairs are made, tenants will resume paying rent to the landlord.

For a more general discussion of the issues of withholding rent to induce the landlord to make repairs, you may want to read my 11/19/05 response entitled "No Heat" in the Landlord/Tenant category of this website.