Appeals Court Upholds Tenant’s Eviction for Short-Term Rental Profiteering

(Decision submitted by Paul N. Gruber of the Manhattan law firm of Borah, Goldstein, Altschuler, Nahins & Goidel, P.C., who represented the landlord.)

Landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant who listed his apartment on Airbnb for nightly rentals at $649 and used his apartment for short-term rentals. The trial court ruled for landlord, finding that tenant rented his apartment as if it were a hotel room and engaged in profiteering. Tenant appealed and lost. The appeals court rejected tenant’s claim that the trial court relied too broadly on tenant’s failure to testify at trial. The appeals court also ruled that landlord wasn’t required to send tenant a notice to cure before terminating his tenancy. Tenant charged subtenants far in excess of the legal rent and commercialized his apartment from the inception of his tenancy.

42nd & 10th Assoc., LLC v. Izeki: 50 Misc.3d 130(A); 2015 NY Slip Op 51915(U) (App. T. 1 Dept.; 12/30/15; Lowe III, PJ, Shulman, Ling-Cohan, JJ)