Ex-slumlord tenants fear being evicted

For the first time in 36 years, Khursh Mian received his family’s rent check back in the mail.
Mian, whose Jackson Heights apartment recently came under the ownership of Vantage Properties LLC, said he had been meeting with neighbors and attorneys from Catholic Migration Services as a pre-emptive measure only a few weeks before. At that time - and in the past when his apartment was owned by slum landlord Nicholas Haros - Mian’s payments and had been accepted each month and cashed.
“Never did they return a check,” Main told fellow residents at a meeting in Woodside on Saturday, April 12, explaining that he has lived in the apartment since he was five.
However, this time Mian was told that his money was returned because another name besides his own was on the check - that of his wife.
“Guess what, she is on the lease,” Mian said.
A 42-year-old New York State police sergeant, Mian said that in previous correspondences with the company he had asked that his wife, Maria Eugenia Harraca, be included but had never received any notice back about his request.
“We would absolutely invite any resident with any kind of confusion to contact us,” Vantage CEO Neil Rubler said, explaining that Vantage has setup several phone numbers for tenants to call with questions.
“Any resident who is legally residing in their apartment is absolutely not going to have their rights denied, and we are very happy to have them as our residents. Any allegations of harassment are completely false and are being brought by somebody who only does so out of self-interest and does not afford us the opportunity to hear us out,” Rubler charged.
“Frankly they are representing nobody but themselves and of course not the view of our residents at large,” Rubler said of advocates and tenants who complained of problems at the recent Queens meeting in St. Sebastian’s auditorium. Rubler cited the percentage of those who attended - about 200 - in comparison to the number of apartments owned by Vantage in Queens - more than 4,000.
However, Robert McCreanor, a lawyer for Catholic Migration Office of Brooklyn and Queens, said that out of apartments bought during the first phase of a multi-step sale - about 2,225 - more than 900 tenants complained that eviction proceedings were being brought against them in Queens County Court documents.
“What we are seeing happen to the tenants aren’t individual instances of misconduct. It’s pretty clear from the volume, the magnitude and number of lawsuits,” McCreanor said.
A notice of intent to sue filed on Thursday, April 10, by McCreanor, along with attorneys from other advocacy groups, charged that Vantage bought the Queens properties, about 40 buildings in total, with the “explicit intent to earn unprecedented profits.”
McCreanor said that the only way to do so would be to evict 20 and 30 percent of tenants within the first year. However, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board estimates the annual vacancy rate for rent-regulated apartments to be between 5 and 6 percent.
The potential lawsuit, filed on behalf of six tenants cites violations of New York’s Consumer Protection against Deceptive Acts and Practices statute, the Debt Collections Procedures law and the Rent Stabilization Law and Code.
However, Rubler disputed any accusation of wrongdoing, saying, “As a consequence of both our diligent management practices and high quality of services we provide, our residents, the vast major of our residents, are thrilled with our commitment, and it is undoubtedly obvious a tiny minority, who clearly are pursuing their own agenda or their own purpose, are seeking to grab attention.”
Rubler added that Vantage is moving forward with plans to renovate the buildings, many of which were left in disrepair by the landlord Nicholas Haros, dubbed one of the city’s worst landlords in 2005.
In the past three months, Vantage has removed about 3,000 Department of Buildings (DOB) violations, Rubler estimated, adding that repairs are underway at nearly all of the Queens buildings.