Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New York

Re: Tenants rights due to sale of house

the lease survives the sale and you can stay for its full term

Re: Tenants rights due to sale of house

One of the problems for any renter outside of the City of New York is the lack of any right to stability. The landlord has no obligation to renew a lease unless there is a clause in the lease that creates that obligation. In an ordinary residential lease, there almost never is.

You need to be practical. You need to find a new lease. Until you do, you will of course be paying your rent, because you never know if the new landlord is going to check your credit rating. Nothing says deadbeat like a residential payment default: TRW and the other bureaus do not care that your lease was about to end anyway.

This is more a matter of practice than of law. You want to be able to bust the lease as soon as you find a new place to live. You need the landlord's agreement to do this. Bear in mind that the twin objectives of not taking a hit on your credit report (at least not yet) and walking on the lease may mean in the end that you forfeit your security deposit instead of being able to use it to pay the last month's rent. It depends on a number of factors. Not the least of these is whether you have any leverage over the landlord. If there are housing violations, or problems with the building, you have that leverage. How you use it is a cat-and-mouse game with which I cannot help you since I do not know the players or the situation. The basic play is that if the landlord will let you out of the lease, you will not blow his deal out of the water by making sure the purchaser knows about the problems. You would also be agreeing to give up any claims you have against the landlord, such as rent abatements due to leaks, decrepit conditions, and the like. And you would be agreeing to move out promptly in ways that would give the landlord's attorney some comfort. One item of leverage that you always have over the landlord is the threat to complicate his sale by _not_ moving out but instead having to be evicted. That is always a major factor in the purchase of a house that is leased to a tenant.

This is the kind of thing that attorneys handle only rarely, such as when the renter is the sister of a senior partner in the law firm or a major client of the lawyer. It happens rarely because in the absence of a concession, it is frightfully expensive to engage counsel to handle this kind of matter. I do hope that the guidance above is of some help to you. It really is a psychological encounter in which the law plays a role, but the most important element is the fact that the landlord needs your cooperation.

As indicated, the #1 priority is finding a new place to live. Good luck, and remember _not_ to use the landlord's broker in the home hunt.