Housing 101: Part 2

While the 311 system has the essentials that could be helpful to tenants, the glaring inefficiencies are sometimes astounding. Coupled with City agencies that either don’t give a damn or are stacked against tenants – which is the same as being pro-landlord – or simply corrupt.

Take the HPD (Housing Preservation and Development); in charge of overseeing apartment problems in Manhattan.  If you call 311 to make a complaint of having no heat, they take the information and pass you on to HPD.  You cannot reach them directly.  The clerk takes the complaint, issues a complaint number and informs you that an inspector will arrive... in a few days.  So, landlords can simply turn off the heat for a couple of days (or not repair a problem), and a couple of days later turn it back on. By the time an inspector arrives, voila, there is heat and no problem to report.

If you make the same complaint enough times and an inspector happens to show when there is no heat, a violation is issued. There is no effect, however.  Normally, a violation results in a fine which may or may not be paid and become a lien on the title– settled out of proceeds when a mortgage is refinanced or a building is sold. Manhattan real estate owners realize millions at sale or upon refinancing and there is little incentive to do anything at all for a tenant.  There is no downside in ignoring complaints.  Except for publicity.

Recently, enough a violation occurred on my apartment so that HPD’s prosecutor initiated a court case against the landlord. By the time the landlord finished getting adjournments, it was May. Heating season was over. Not to mention the fact that the landlord transferred the title during the time the case was on the calendar and the defendant no longer existed.

I remember my 95-year-old mother sitting on my living room couch complaining of being cold. When I called the landlord, Mark Ramer, to complain about the lack of heat (since I was once a member of the Tenants Association– who have mostly been evicted), he said, “Do you think we give a fuck about you.”

On a subsequent court matter he was asked about that quote and lied about it on the witness stand.  Fortunately, it was a recorded conversation.

Belkin, Burden, their lawyers have also had attorneys suspended for fraud – but seem to do very well in front of our courts. They have become specialists in what is still legal in our landlord-tenant midst– litigating tenants out of their affordable apartments in Manhattan– using any ploy necessary. Tenants cannot pay rent and legal fees at the same time.  A matter still ignored by politicians, so far.