"RETALIATORY” HOLDOVER CASE DISMISSED ON APPEAL
After the City Court of Long Beach, (Nassau County), granted the landlord a final judgment of possession in a holdover case, the tenant appealed.
And on its review of the dispute, the Appellate Term, Second Department, noted that because the case had been started within a year of the tenant’s filing of a complaint re the conditions in her apartment with the Long Beach Housing Authority, a rebuttable presumption that the eviction case was “retaliatory” had been triggered.
Since the tenant asserted the claim, it was incumbent upon the landlord to provide a “`credible explanation of a non-retaliatory motive for [ownership's] acts’ (Real Property Law § 223-b [5]).” And since the owner failed to do so, the AT2 thought that relief in its favor had been improperly granted. It thus reversed the underlying determination, and dismissed the case.
Think that landlord will retaliate against its lawyer, too?
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DECISION