Protecting tenants against harassment
This new law will make landlords think
twice before they use abusive tactics
against their tenants, and will give tenants
the proper protections to defend against
this type of abuse.
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | DEC. 20-26, 2019 17
BY LETITIA JAMES
In my years representing New
Yorkers as an attorney and elected
official, I have worked with rentregulated
tenants subjected to some
appalling tactics by their landlords
to force them out of their homes.
Despite the severity of these acts
and so many others, not a single
landlord has ever been convicted of
tenant harassment under a 20-year
old state law intended to prevent
such behavior. That’s because the
standard to prove criminal culpability
for tenant harassment was impossibly
high. That changes starting
this week.
My office spearheaded the passage
of a new law that will finally
make it possible to hold landlords accountable
when they engage in abusive
behavior towards tenants.
Tenant harassment has become a
big business; in fact, an entire real estate
investment model was created on
the basis of purchasing buildings with
significant numbers of rent-regulated
units and then using heavyhanded
tactics to force out
those tenants to maximize a
building’s value.
This is not a new problem.
Culprits have included
small landlords and some
of the biggest and most notable
real estate tycoons in
the city, including Donald Trump.
Before he was president, Trump
purchased a building with rent-regulated
tenants. He then hired, in his
own words, a company that “specialized
in relocating tenants,”
and embarked on a fiveyear
campaign of tenant
harassment.
Before passage of our
law, prosecutors had to meet
a remarkably high standard
to prove harassment:
that the landlord wanted to
force out the tenant and, in so doing,
intentionally or recklessly caused
physical injury to a tenant. This
definition fails to capture all sorts
of the most common – and dangerous
– tactics including those referenced
here, many of which are objectively
harassment but might not ever cause
an actual physical injury.
This new law will make landlords
think twice before they use abusive
tactics against their tenants, and
will give tenants the proper protections
to defend against this type
of abuse — abuse that we all know
should be prohibited.
To be clear, landlords will still be
allowed to pursue lawful evictions of
rent-regulated tenants. But the law
will recognize the insidious tactics
that bad actors have previously been
free to employ to intimidate and
abuse tenants.
It’s unconscionable for a landlord
to unlawfully force a family from its
home simply to improve his own bottom
line. Now prosecutors in New
York will finally have the tools they
need to prevent abuse and tenants
throughout New York will be safer.
Letitia James is the attorney
general of New York State.
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