Is the 78-year-old George Pavia a bully resident-landlord who is trying to intimidate his tenants? Or is 67-year-old James Couri, convicted on federal fraud charges in the 1980s, a litigious pro se tenant whose addition of Pavia to his list of legal adversaries is a scheme to get out from paying rent? Six years of legal battles (helped by Couri’s ability to find Pavia’s technical violations of the regulatory morass facing NYC landlords) will culminate in a jury trial in 2007, though the personal enmities involved suggest that there will be years of appeals afterwards. Couri tried to enlist other tenants against Pavia in a suit claiming that Pavia overcharges tenants, but, inspirationally, the other tenants refused, feeling that their rents were reasonable regardless of what New York’s arcane rent control laws say. Pavia has not been able to evict Couri though the former feels harassed by his involuntary neighbor and the latter hounded a gay designer out of the building; one of Pavia’s lawyers explains, “Apparently, there are certain judges in New York who would rather take arsenic than evict a tenant.” For the Coasian effects of such judges, see POL Nov. 28; but see Giacalone for an opposing view that isn’t quite responsive. Moral: tenant background checks are your friend. (Ron Stodghill, “A House Divided: Uncivil War on E. 73rd”, New York Times, Dec. 10).
Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, New York landlord-tenant edition
Is the 78-year-old George Pavia a bully resident-landlord who is trying to intimidate his tenants? Or is 67-year-old James Couri, convicted on federal fraud charges in the 1980s, a litigious pro se tenant whose addition of Pavia to his list of legal adversaries is a scheme to get out from paying rent? Six years of […]
One Comment
Keep all this mind when you’re writing out your big monthly check for a New York apartment (an exercise of mine for seven years). This is the risk your landlord undertakes, and this is how he’s compensated for it. I’m sure there are sympathetic stories to be found tenant-side, and I wouldn’t call myself an opponent of some protection measures for tenants. But I wonder what would happen to rents if the law weren’t so tilted in their favor? “Landlord” is a term that invites scorn and conjures an image of a scrooge-like capitalist with his feet up, but the crap they (the smaller ones who don’t have third parties do the dirty work) have to put up with is never-ending. Plenty of folks who thought they could pick up some easy extra cash on the side have discovered what a headache it can be.