Posted on 06/14/2012 7:56:50 AM PDT by JoeProBono
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – How would you like to not pay your rent, year after year, and get away with it?
A Brooklyn woman has done just that for the past six years.
Artist Margaret Maugenest, 60, stopped paying rent for several years, but instead of getting evicted, the state’s highest court said she was justified, CBS 2′s John Slattery reported.
“Yeah, I feel very good about that, John. I feel very relieved,” Maugenest told Slattery.
Since 1984, Maugenest has lived in a loft — a converted manufacturing building on Nevins Street in Gowanus – with rent of less than 600 a month.
Several years ago, however, Maugenest began withholding rent because over no maintenance and safety concerns.
“The wooden pillars in the basement were rotting,” Maugenest said.
Under the city’s 1982 Loft Law, former commercial buildings could be rented to residential tenants if safety issues were met. But this tenant says a gas leak in the building wasn’t fixed — it was just shut off.
“We didn’t have gas for about a year-and-a-half,” Maugenest said. “That meant I couldn’t cook.”
She also said she had no hot water.
After six years of non-payment with the landlord trying to evict her, she was forced to pay 2 1/2 years of court-ordered rent. The landlord won two lower rulings, but now, the state’s highest court said that since the landlord missed deadlines for building improvement, there’s no eviction, and back rent can’t be collected.
The landlord’s lawyer, David Berger, counsel for Chazon LLC, citing an overburdened Loft Board, said, “”The result is that the tenant may live rent free in a very large apartment, that she obviously feels safe in, under the guise that she is just trying to get the Landlord to make her apartment safe, with no end or limit.”
Maugenest gets to keep the back rent for the past 6 1/2 years which amounts to roughly $35,000.
Sure her Loft Apartment Looks nice. She spent the money and time to hire people and FIX it herself. Not the A-Hole Scum Lord.
You see that has been the Racket of these Shyster's for years. They get the tenant to Fix their property.
If the area changes. “gentrifies” then it is time to get rid of the Tenant(s) that made it happen.
The original Intent of the loft law was to protect “Artists”. Since the application of the Loft Law is flawed and mired in Politics.
Most Loft tenants are not “Artists”. However they did nothing illegal. Neither did the Artists who rented these Slum lofts. Everyone has a reason to live in these illegal Multiple Dwellings.
None of those reason's are illegal. Thank you Margaret. you have inspired this Artist to carry on. 12 years I paid the conman Slum Lord Vampire his rent. I suffered one indignity after another.
Tried to get out when my health was affected by the lousy condition's. He tried to defraud me. My situation got worse.
Witnessed for several years. One tenant after another. fixing the Slum lords property. Then kicked out and defrauded.
The Slum Lords have castrated the loft Board. Have zeroed in on its weaknesses. Prevented reform with their political Cronies.
Here are a few words from this monumental decision that saved my home in the nick of time.
“But we find nothing in the opinions endorsing such results,
nothing in the arguments of the Landlords here,and nothing anywhere else to explain how they can be reconciled with the text of the statute. They simply cannot.”
Basically the 2nd Department cannot Legislate from the Bench on behalf of Slum Lords. My opinion.
Forget the case in Manhattan . Quote. “The Landlords brought it upon themselves”
Greed has no bounds. Go for it Margaret. A trust, a contract. Pass on your protected rights. A last act of DEFIANCE against greed.
Me. No Art No Home No Peace. I am inspired. The Republic got it wrong.
She Beat the Scum Lord out of 9 years Rent. Good for you Margaret !
Thank you for your effort. The Artists of Brooklyn. Most perhaps can save their homes.
All Loft Dwellers can now save their homes !
They the Slum lords violated the Law. We needed to have some live work space. It is not communism.
It is Poetic Justice
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