600 West 161st Street in Manhattan. Image credit: CityLaw.

Building Owner added apartments and lacked new certificate of occupancy. GVS Properties LLC owned a 10-story residential building at 600 West 161st Street in Manhattan. In 1970, GVS Properties received a certificate of occupancy that permitted 53 apartments in the building. In 2014 GVS Properties applied for a certificate of occupancy to validate alterations to the building which had increased the number of apartments to 60. Buildings refused to grant the certificate of occupancy because the apartments did not have two exits in case of a fire. Subsequently, nineteen tenants in the building refused to pay rent, asserting that the building did not have a valid certificate of occupancy.  GVS Properties sued the tenants for the rent.

Housing Court Judge Jean T. Schneider, on August 2, 2017, ruled in favor of the tenants. The certificate of occupancy from 1970 was invalid because there were more apartments than there had been in 1970.

On March 28, 2018 the Appellate Term, First Department, citing the Multiple Dwelling Law, affirmed the lower court’s decision. The Court ruled that the tenants had no obligation to pay their rent because the building had been substantially altered since 1970 and the landlord no longer had a valid certificate of occupancy.

GVS Properties LLC, Petitioner-Landlord-Appellant, v. Raybblin Vargas et al., Respondents-Tenants-Respondents., 2018 WL 1527809 (N.Y. App. Term. 2018).

By: Ayala Blumenkratz (Ayala is a New York Law School Student, Class of 2019.)