NYC Tenant Horror Stories
I hear all the time how bad landlords are. There's a few bad apples in every field - whether it be landlords, tenants, cops, teachers, students, the list goes on. I've been investing in NYC real estate (multi-families under 6 units) for the past few years and I want to share some of my personal tenant horror stories to show there's a lot of bad apples when it comes to tenants as well.
Brooklyn: I bought a 3 family home at auction. I go to the house, find that the 1st floor holdover tenant tried to steal the house. 7 years prior, he found out the house was vacant and for sale. He somehow broke into the home, changed the locks, and was able to produce a utility bill before the owner found out (NY Law refresher: if you can prove you've lived in the house for more than 30 days or can produce utility bill, then you can't be kicked out by police - you must go through formal eviction which can take a year). Not only that, he pretended to be the owner and rented the other two apartments out and collected rent. NYPD came to arrest him at the house one day, he refused to open the door so NYPD broke down the front door. The case was dragged on in court and he sued the NYPD for wrongful arrest for 100M! (He lost the case). I had to pay each apartment more than $5k to leave within 2 months. I found out from the neighbors that this person did this same scheme to 5 other houses in Brooklyn, so he's basically a professional tenant taking advantage of these great NYC tenant laws.
Bronx: I purchased a home from bank and went to visit the holdover tenants currently occupying the premises. I see that the tenants own a BMW M6, Mercedes G500, and Mercedes GLS450. The tenants have bad credit (I tried finding them housing elsewhere but couldn't because of their credit). So I filed an eviction and it took me 6 months just to get a court date (which they got free legal aid attorney to represent them), at which point the judge gives them 6 months to move, so basically 12 months total that I'm out of pocket paying insurance, water, and property taxes. Oh yeah, sometime in between I get a subpoena from the district attorney asking for a list of tenants because supposedly one of the tenants is wanted for a crime and didn't show up to court.
Somethings gotta give. First the government puts these ridiculous "Tenant Protection Act of 2019" laws in place. They cap late fees at $50 regardless of whether your rent is $500 or $5,000 without any consideration to what the late fees are on the homeowner's mortgage. What's next, capping the price of meals at Jean-Georges restaurants because poor people can't afford his meals? Where else in the world would a trespasser be entitled to 1 year of free living while the eviction case is slowly progressing? Trespassers would be SHOT in most parts of the midwest!
