Can I Sue My Landlord?

Mitchell Zingman recalls the distraught client who, after cultivating an enclosed garden for 30 years at her Manhattan apartment—with full permission from the owners—found the entire thing bulldozed to the ground one day by the daughter who’d inherited the place and had her own plans for the land.

“I sued the landlord, arguing that after all those years, that garden was part of her lease,” says Zingman, a real estate litigator and founder of Zingman & Associates. “Particularly as a rent-controlled tenant, they had no right to get rid of it. I won on summary judgment, and they were compelled to give her money so she could put the garden back together.”

While most tenants don’t sue their landlords over the literal fruits of their labor, many do take legal recourse over common issues: failure to make necessary repairs; the withholding of security deposits; wrongful eviction. 

Many lawsuits are reactive, Zingman adds: “A lot of times, the tenants aren’t so much initiating the lawsuit as counterclaiming when they get sued for withholding rent for things like failure of the landlord to perform repairs in the apartment.”

What’s more, says Samuel Himmelstein, a commercial and tenants’ rights litigator at Himmelstein McConnell Gribben & Joseph, many landlords are jacking up rent prices after being more lenient during the pandemic. “They’re coming back at people with a vengeance. We’re getting lots and lots of [non-rent-stabilized tenants] who contact us and say, ‘My landlord wants to increase my rent by $500 a month after years of it being the same.’”

Before you charge into a legal battle, Himmelstein offers a few other options to try. If your heat isn’t reliable, start keeping a journal with dates, times, duration and description. Then notify your landlord in writing. Be respectful—a judge may read your letter in court if your case does go to trial. 

If the landlord ignores your complaint, a state housing agency might do the heavy lifting for you. Consider filing a claim with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal if your landlord overcharges you or discontinues services like a storage area or package delivery. “We had one case where the landlord had provided the tenants with a swimming pool, [then removed it],” Himmelstein says. “And the DHCR did a little research and determined that the monthly cost of a pool membership in the neighborhood was about $200. And they ordered the landlord to lower everybody’s rent by the cost of a pool membership.”

Repairs are actually among the easiest issues to resolve, the attorneys say. A Housing Part Proceeding filed in Housing Court will usually prompt a landlord to fix broken pipes or remove mold simply because the proof of damage is easily documented with photos. “The judge pulls it up on her computer and looks at the landlord and says, ‘When are you going to fix it?’” says Himmelstein. “Ninety percent or more of those cases end up with the tenant getting an order from the court that the repairs get done.”

To recoup a security deposit, which can be substantial in New York, Himmelstein recommends suing in small claims court or mediating through the state attorney general’s office. And thanks to New York’s 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, both rent-stabilized and market-rate tenants can now file a claim in Housing Court for harassment, including threats, physical intimidation, even relentless buyout offers. And if you’ve been evicted without notice, call the police. It’s criminal. “The court will process it quickly because it’s considered an emergency,” Himmelstein says. 

If your problems persist, contact an attorney who specializes in tenant-landlord issues.   

Pro bono advice may be available, depending on your circumstances. You can also reduce legal costs by joining forces with neighbors facing the same issues. “Pooling the resources that way kind of levels the playing field,” says Himmelstein, who had a recent success representing a group of six tenants in three small, adjacent buildings in Lower Manhattan. With no defense, the landlord settled quickly, recognizing their status as rent-stabilized tenants, rolling back their rent, refunding overcharges and reimbursing attorney fees.

And no, you can’t sue for everyday annoyances, like kids running back and forth upstairs. “Now, it’s another thing if someone is blasting disco music at 4:00 in the morning,” Himmelstein says. “But when you live in a New York City apartment, you have to put up with a certain amount of living noise.”