State Senator Brad Hoylman

By Sabina Mollot

Under current law, landlords can oust tenants from a building by claiming they’re going to be demolishing it.

However, the owner wouldn’t necessarily face any penalties if that demolition never ended up happening, and State Senator Brad Hoylman has said he is looking into changing this.

The topic of ousting tenants, particularly lower rent paying ones under this scheme was recently covered in an article in The Real Deal. The article focused on a talk given by landlord attorney Michelle Maratto Itkowitz in which she discussed the practice, saying that as far as she knew, building owners have not faced penalties for not making good on a demolition plan following the evictions. That said, she warned an owner might be sued “by a nasty person with a grudge,” yet also stressed that landlords who try to harass tenants out of their homes were looking for trouble, like the recently arrested Steven Croman.

After seeing the article, Hoylman, told Town & Village he was “researching the issue” and noted that in his district, on the East Side as well as the West Side, he’d seen demolitions and questioned their legality due to their having been done “without appropriate permits.”

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