Tennat and Landlord Issue (urgent please)

[Blanch]

My jurisdiction is: Brooklyn/New York

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Case: Lived in two bedroom apartment with Parents and younger sister. Mother is the person on the lease. Time occupied; one year and one month. Occupied apartment from November 2007 until November of 2008. The lease was up in October but unfortunately we did not find a place until the following month (November of which we moved). The Landlord during the final month of the lease was trying to negotiate a signing of a new lease with my mother. I persuaded her not to sign the lease because the landlord was increasing the rent from $1400 per month (without utilities) to $1550 per month (without utilities). Given that the apartment is only a two bedroom with a kitchen and dining room inclusion located in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, i did not think it was worth almost $1600 with no utilities.

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During the negotiation of signing the second lease my mom did sign for another year but the Landlord made an error on the lease, which made it null and void. A new lease was drawn up and dropped off for my mother to sign. She didn't, following my advice. We decided to stay the extra month and let our final months rent/security pay for that month.

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Subsequently when the landlord was informed about us moving and not signing the lease they became very irritated and started making threatening accusations against my mom demanding she signed the lease. I informed the landlord that we are going to use our security to cover our final months rent and she agreed. However, the Landlord later returned around the week before we were moving insisting on my mother paying $1550 for the extra month on the claim that the security is not the final months rent. But during process of obtaining this apartment it was explained to us by the Realtor agent and the Landlord's son ( who was standing in for his mother) that the security is the last month's rent. We payed a three way payment.

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I ignoring my advice my mom attempted to give the landlord an extra $150 to cover the rent, the landlord refused. After the turning over the apartment and the keys, they praise my parents on the apartment and the fact that they were no damages. The Landlord later asked for the extra $150 but my mom didn't pay her.

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It's approximately 3three months since this incident, My mom was Summons at her school (teacher) to appear in court for unpaid fees. I would like to know what steps to take and have we in any way violated anything that would potentially harm us financially.
Thank you... sorry for it being so long

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

Your lease ended on the last day of October. You then (in the absence of a written lease) because a "month to month" tenant or a tenancy at will. In other words, at that point, your lease ran from the first of each month to the last day of each month.

As such, rents can be raised during each "tenancy" and starting November 1st, your rent was now $1550. Your security deposit (which really should not have been used as rent as it leaves your landlord with no financial fallback should the tenant leave the unit with damages above normal wear and tear) only covered $1400 of this.

It is likely your landlord is now suing your mother for this unpaid fee and perhaps for damages found after the unit was vacated. What she does is attend this court hearing.

Gail

 

[Blanch]

Thanks Gail, she will be in court. I am aware that it would be more of her disadvantage if she does not. I just needed to know what we might possibly owe the landlord, seeing that the landlord had agreed to accept the $1400 as our rent. I must make mention that we did not just vacate the apartment without notice. There was an official handing over of the keys, inspection and so forth. We took pictures to verify that the apartment was in adequate condition. We even painted the entire apartment, there was no additional fee aside from the basics that the landlord would have to put into the apartment.
Also, at the time of signing of the lease it was understood that the three way payment included the first month rent/last month rent/agent fee.

The court summons also stated...interest fees for the Landlord and her partners. Also should we have or do we need a legal representative?

 

[Gail_in_Georgia]

If this case is heard in Housing Court or Small Claims (the paperwork should list which court this hearing will be held in) an attorney is not needed, although you can certainly have one present if you wish. Many of these cases involve relatively small amounts of sums and thus the cost of an attorney would be prohibitive.

Gail