
Originally Posted by
michealb
I considor it a win if the judge tells the tenant they have to leave. My uncle who owns property in New York was told that he wasn't allowed to evict a tenant because she had no where else to go. The judge gave the tenant 6 months to put her life together rent and utility free(he had to pay to keep utilities on or face big fines for not having a habitable place) all on my uncles dime.
So if your Uncle didn't allow the tenant to stay the Judge was going to fine your Uncle for having an unhabitable apartment and your Uncle was going to have to pay fines to bring it up to code? That would appear to indicate that the apartment was, in fact, uninhabitable or minimally not up to code.
I owned an apartment building in NYS - 6 units - which I recently sold and I never ran into anything like this. Of course, I was up to Code.
Sounds to me - and I'm familiar with NYS Law - like the apartment was uninhabitable and the Judge allowed the tenant to stay for 6 months, free utilities, in lieu of fining your Uncle an equal amount of money and awarding the tenant a return of some of the rent she paid.
Unless I'm missing something here -