On Friday, March 19th, attorneys representing tenants at Gotham West, the Nicole, and the Atlas filed a class action lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court against the buildings' owners and management company alleging violations of Rent Stabilization Laws, breach of the buildings' HFA agreements, and deceptive business practices.
By Monday afternoon, The Real Deal was all over the story.
Nobody's gonna muffle this kerfuffle any longer. The landlord has revoked utility credits guaranteed in rent stabilized leases, and the tenants are busting-chops mad.
Of course, Gotham couldn't even be truthful with the press. They assured The Real Deal that they had restored the utility credits while they are trying to figure out a way to legally take them away. Not the truth. Not anywhere near the truth. The suffering tenants in the Nicole and the Atlas haven't seen their utility credits restored. The Gotham West tenants got a partial restoration of utility credits at the 2019 rates without the increases mandated for 2020 and 2021. Nobody has seen the utility credits restored to their leases.
Along with not being truthful about restoring the utility credits, Gotham backed right into an admission that they knew revoking the credits in the leases beginning in 2019 was illegal when they said they were now looking for a legal way to accomplish it.
New York Supreme Court documents
Leave a comment