NEW YORK \u2013 On a recent weeknight, three tenants of an aging Bronx building were trading apartment horror stories inside a packed ballroom lined with city bureaucrats.<\/p>\n
The occasion was the third in a series of \u201crental rip-off hearings,\u201d a new forum launched by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> for disgruntled renters to air their complaints directly to housing officials \u2014 and in some cases, the mayor himself.<\/p>\n As she waited in line, Gulhayo Yuldosheva said she worried that noxious mold in her apartment had worsened her child\u2019s asthma. Nearby, her downstairs neighbor, Marina Quiroz, was showing a video of rats scurrying through her kitchen to a representative of the city\u2019s tenant protection office.<\/p>\n Ann Maitin, a longtime resident of the same building, had just met with the mayor.<\/p>\n \u201cHe let me go over my three minutes,\u201d she said, holding up a spiral notebook\u2019s worth of grievances.<\/p>\n Mamdani, a democratic socialist swept into office on a promise of zealous tenant advocacy<\/a>, framed the event as a struggle session for renters, assuring the standing room only crowd that their stories would guide the city’s efforts \u201cto actually hold landlords accountable when they don\u2019t follow the law.”<\/p>\n To the residents of 705 Gerard Avenue, this raised a practical problem: No one seemed to know who actually owned their building.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like such a basic question,\u201d said Maitin, a retired Verizon technician who recently organized the building\u2019s tenant association. \u201cYou\u2019d think we\u2019d have the right to that information.\u201d<\/p>\n Their situation is hardly unique. As corporate owners and investor groups have grown their share of the rental market<\/a> in New York City, they are increasingly shielding their identities behind limited liability companies, or LLCs.<\/p>\n The practice, which has also been spreading nationally<\/a>, is legal. But experts warn it could complicate Mamdani\u2019s promised crackdown, making it harder for the city and tenants to track the chronically negligent owners whose buildings the mayor has vowed to target and even seize.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are these big slumlords that everyone knows are doing predatory investment, but pinning them down is going to be difficult, for the LLC reason,\u201d said Oksana Mironova, a housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. \u201cThat\u2019s a problem for the administration, and it\u2019s even worse for tenants.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018They treat us the same as the rats\u2019<\/p>\n For Yuldosheva and her neighbors, finding their landlord is one of many problems afflicting their six-story building near Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n Heat and hot water outages are regular enough that some tenants keep a thermometer on their fridge and the city\u2019s complaint hotline on speed dial. Common areas are often filthy, and increasingly populated by drug users. Getting help with an urgent maintenance issue \u201cfeels like waiting for Christmas in July,\u201d said Maitin.<\/p>\n During a monthslong elevator outage, a tenant who uses a wheelchair, Tommy Rodriguez, said he was forced to \u201cslide down the steps, like a kid.\u201d Calls to the building management about a repair timeline went unanswered, he said.<\/p>\n Growing up in the building in the 1980s, Rodriguez recalled the previous landlord as a friendly and responsive neighborhood presence.<\/p>\n \u201cThis felt like a home before,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cNow they treat us the same as the rats.\u201d<\/p>\n A large rodent had recently chewed a hole through his couch cushion. He handled the extermination himself, with a two-by-four.<\/p>\n A distressing breakthrough<\/p>\n Recently, tenants received a clue about their landlord, following the partial collapse of another Bronx building. The man identified in news stories<\/a> as the owner of that building, David Kleiner, shared a Brooklyn office with their building manager, Binyomin Herzl.<\/p>\n A handful of tenants visited each of the building\u2019s 72 units, logging an array of decrepit conditions and unusual alterations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to become the next news story,\u201d said Yuldosheva, pointing to a crack in the wall of a bedroom shared by her three children \u2014 a result, she feared, of the subway that rumbles just below her windows.<\/p>\n Lawsuits show that Herzl has been ordered to pay more than $100,000 for violations across at least six Bronx buildings, several of which were found by a judge to pose an imminent hazard.<\/p>\n Reached by phone, Herzl said he didn’t own any of those properties, but simply acted as a middleman between tenants and the true owners, whom he declined to list. \u201cThere\u2019s no one landlord,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a group of investors.\u201d<\/p>\n Kleiner, who was previously featured on the city\u2019s \u201cworst landlord\u201d list, confirmed his partial ownership of 705 Gerard in a brief phone call, but declined further comment.<\/p>\n Herzl, meanwhile, attributed the tenants\u2019 complaints to \u201cnormal wear and tear\u201d of a nearly century old building. He said Mamdani should focus on improving the city\u2019s public housing, rather than going after private landlords.<\/p>\n \u201cOur buildings look like five star hotels against his,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n From fines to seizures<\/p>\n When landlords refuse to address a serious violation, like heat or hot water outages, the city can step in and order repairs, then bill the owner directly.<\/p>\n In the last three years, inspectors have ordered emergency repairs at 38 buildings that list either Herzl or Kleiner as an owner, according to records provided by the city\u2019s housing department. The men have been billed $446,521 for those repairs.<\/p>\n Mamdani has proposed using such fines as a vehicle to bring distressed rental properties under city stewardship, by aggressively pursuing liens on delinquent landlords and buying up their portfolios through foreclosure auctions.<\/p>\n Just as the city can shut down unsanitary restaurants, Mamdani has said, landlords that \u201crepeatedly put New Yorkers at risk will not be allowed to operate in New York City \u2014 with no exceptions.”<\/p>\n In reality, the process is resource-intensive and legally fraught<\/a>. It is made more complex by the nest of LLCs often used by landlords to obfuscate the full scope of their portfolios, according to Cea Weaver, director of the Mayor\u2019s Office to Protect Tenants.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019d be great to have a better sense of who owns the buildings that we are regulating and overseeing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n State legislation that would have made it easier to identify LLC owners was recently vetoed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul amid pressure from landlords.<\/p>\n New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords<\/p>\n Kenny Burgos, the CEO of the New York Apartment Association, a landlord lobbying group, said Mamdani\u2019s tenant proposals \u2014 including freezing the rent<\/a> for regulated tenants \u2014 would force landlords to cut back on maintenance and services.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s going to take away from the elevator budget, the boiler budget, the heating budget,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a question of math: These buildings are crumbling because of policy, not because of bad landlords.\u201d<\/p>\n He characterized the rental rip-off hearings as \u201cshow trials\u201d that took a \u201ctribal approach\u201d to the city\u2019s affordable housing crisis.<\/p>\n