NYC small landlords say new eviction moratorium gives tenants excuse to skip rent
The newest New York State anti-eviction laws brought much needed relief to tenants shell-shocked by financial hardships wrought by COVID, but some mom-and-pop landlords worry those measures may ultimately leave them holding the bag.
Those landlords, owners of two- and three-family homes and smaller apartment buildings, say the newest laws adopted in Albany last month are too broad and ignore cases where tenants who are working and have the means to pay rent, simply aren’t — putting cash-strapped owners in a bind when it comes to paying their mortgage, tax and other bills.
Sharon Redhead owns a 19-unit apartment building in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and said some of the renters living there need the help — but not all of them.
“There are tenants who are unemployed who are paying full or partial rent, and there are tenants who work who aren’t paying any rent at all,” she said.
According to Redhead, tenants in one apartment haven’t paid anything since March 2019, even though one of them runs two catering businesses out of the apartment.
“I see her on a weekly basis loading up her BMW to take her baked goods,” said Redhead, who also works as an accountant. “And her husband is a union employee.”
Redhead declined to name the tenants, saying she feared it would lead to accusations of harassment.
The tenants did not return calls seeking their side of the story.
The latest anti-eviction laws from Albany are aimed primarily at tenants, but also include protections for smaller landlords, such as making it harder for banks to foreclose on them.
But those protections aren’t helpful to Redhead or Clarence Hamer, who owns a two-family home in Brownsville. Hamer said one of his tenant’s failure to pay rent has left him behind on mortgage, gas and tax bills.
Hamer, who works for the city, estimates he’s owed $46,000 in back rent from the tenant, who he says has been illegally subletting rooms in the apartment during the pandemic.
“I would like her to move immediately,” Hamer, 46, told the Daily News. “She’s basically getting over.”
Hamer’s tenant Chantal Clement-Davis did not return calls.
Hamer and other landlords facing similar situations said they understand the need for laws protecting tenants from evictions as financial pressures continue to bear down on them — and the latest package of laws does just that.
The laws, which Gov. Cuomo signed off on Dec. 28, prohibit evictions in most cases for about two months and place a moratorium on some, but not all, foreclosure proceedings until May. One of the measures also puts a hold on tax lien sales to protect landlords from losing their properties due to unpaid bills.
But landlords argue the laws also protect tenants with a source of income who, instead of paying rent, are holding out.
Ketsia Magnan, who lives in a two-family in Canarsie that she shares with a tenant, said she agrees with the spirit of the laws, but that they shouldn’t protect people who have the means to pay all or part of their rent and don’t.
“It’s not like I’m some big real estate mogul,” she said. “The house wasn’t free. It wasn’t given to me. I have to work for everything I have to pay for. It’s not free money.”
Magnan claims she is owed about $12,000 in rent dating back to March 2020 and said she wouldn’t be so frustrated with the situation if her tenant was out of work.
“I know she’s working because she gets her pay stubs in the mail,” said Magnan, a mother of two. “It’s just plain and simple taking advantage of the situation.”
Tenant advocate Cea Weaver suggested that cases in which tenants are taking advantage of the moratorium are “outliers” and noted that the new laws don’t forgive rental payments indefinitely.
“All of these people still have to pay,” Weaver, the campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All, said. “There are always outliers. Most people aren’t trying to game the system. Most people don’t know what to do.”
Magnan works as an insurance underwriter and her husband owns a cafe, but he had to shut it down because of the pandemic. They’ve managed to continue making mortgage payments on the home, but now have to pay for a housing lawyer and are behind on their utility bills and other expenses.
“I know there’s people who are in worse situations. It’s still not fair,” she said. “Nobody’s really looking at how people are taking advantage of the situation.”
Redhead said she’s up to date on most of her bills now, but that could change on a dime.
“In six months, I don’t know,” she said. “All it takes is a busted boiler or a busted pipe, and I don’t have a cushion anymore.”
Because of this, she believes the eviction moratorium should not be applied across the board.
Joseph Strasburg, president of the pro-landlord Rent Stabilization Association, agrees. He predicts that without exceptions to the rules approved in Albany, the state is setting small landlords up for a “catastrophe” once housing courts begin hearing cases concerned with nonpayment of rent.
“There are people who are working and still getting a paycheck with the full knowledge that they don’t have to pay rent. And they know they’ll never have to pay fully,” he said. “Smaller landlords will never be made whole. When the [court] system does start again, what’s going to happen is the judges, just to move the system forward, are going to force settlements.”
But Weaver noted that it’s an open question of whether that will happen, and if does, who will benefit most from it.
“I wouldn’t say Housing Court is a particularly pro-tenant place,” she said.
