ELDERLY AND LONG TERM MANHATTAN TENANTS SUE VANTAGE PROPERTIES FOR HARASSMENT AND DECEPTION

New York, NY—Manhattan Legal
Services (“MLS,” a program of Legal Services NYC) today filed a lawsuit in
State Supreme Court against Vantage Properties LLC (“Vantage”) and BP III 3489
Broadway LLC (“3489 Broadway LLC”) for violating New York City’s Tenant
Protection Act. 

Plaintiffs in the case, residents of 3495 Broadway in Washington Heights, are Spanish-speaking, low-income, rent stabilized or rent controlled tenants. Vantage and 3489 Broadway LLC have harassed, threatened and intimidated these tenants in an effort to compel them to vacate their dwellings so that they can increase the rent of the apartments in violation of the law.

Queens Legal Services Corporation, another program of Legal Services NYC, filed a similar lawsuit against Vantage Properties in early April. That case is being argued today, October 29th, at the Appellate Division. MLS’ Director of Litigation Chaumtoli Huq said "Vantage has now carried its harassment antics over to Manhattan from Queens. Just like our sister organizations in Queens, we will vigorously represent our elderly tenants against eviction.”

MLS Housing Unit Staff Attorney Lyda Tyburec said, “Vantage has demanded payment of charges that the tenants do not owe, commenced baseless lawsuits against some of the plaintiffs, and refused to make necessary repairs to leaky ceilings on the verge of collapse, damaged floors, cracks and holes in the walls, and windows that do not close. Additionally, the tenants live with mold, rodents and roaches because of Vantage and 3489 Broadway LLC’s gross negligence and disregard for the lives, health and safety of the plaintiffs’ and other occupants of the premises.”

Furthermore, Vantage has made false, deceptive and misleading representations to the tenants in written communications, including in rent bills and other correspondence. In making these representations, Vantage has engaged in deceptive practices in violation of the New York Consumer Protection Law, General Business Law Art. 22-A, Section 349.
MLS and its clients are seeking an injunction requiring defendants to correct their records; to cease charging plaintiffs with balances that they do not owe; to cease the wrongful charging of Section 8 and excessive security deposits; and to stop threatening to file non-payment actions against rent-regulated tenants who have paid their rent.

“As a recognition of our organizing work on behalf of the community, the tenants from 3495 Broadway came to our organization seeking help to organize their tenant association because they were having serious disrepair conditions and their new landlord was abusing some of them. From day one we pledged to support the tenants in fighting predatory equity companies such as Vantage that are coming into our neighborhood to discriminate and harass our elderly and longtime residents,” said Manuel Castro, Housing Organizer at Mirabal Sisters, a community organization which has been working with the tenants and MLS on the case.

Legal Services NYC—the largest organization exclusively devoted to providing free civil legal services in the United States—provides high quality legal assistance on cases involving housing, family law, domestic violence, public benefits, income tax, employment, education, consumer rights and economic development. For more than 40 years, Legal Services NYC’s staff of talented attorneys, paralegals, social workers and clerical workers have helped low-income New Yorkers with nowhere else to turn navigate the civil legal system.
Mirabal Sisters is a grassroots community organization committed to cultivate leadership and mobilize residents to collectively demand social, economic and environmental justice and find solutions that address the root causes of the injustice against low-income, immigrants, Latinos and people of color in West Harlem and Washington Heights.

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Click here for coverage in The Indypendent.