New York, NY —
Ever since Dawnay Day – a London based investment group bought up dozens of rent stabilized buildings in East Harlem, some of the tenants afraid of being pushed out of the neighborhood, have been suspicious of their new landlord. Letters they’ve been receiving lately are making matters worse. WNYC’s Cindy Rodriguez reports:
REPORTER: On July 10th Cesar Brockman received a letter in his mailbox:
BROCKMAN: The letter says, dear tenant. I hope that you’re enjoying your summer and staying cool. First off I’d like to introduce myself.
REPORTER: Brockman is a 64 year old retired bank manager. He’s heavy set and is sitting inside his cluttered 2 bedroom rent stabilized apartment that looks like it hasn’t had a paint job since the 1970’s – that’s around when he first moved into the place:
BROCKMAN: I would like to let you know that Dawnay Day US has established a new program that you might be interested in. It is called the buyback program. We have gotten the go ahead from the owner of your building to offer you a substantial amount of money in exchange for possession of your apartment. This offer is only being extended to a select group of tenants of which you are one.
REPORTER: The offer is what’s called a buyout letter. There’s nothing new about them. Landlords have long tried to buyout tenants in rent stabilized buildings in order to either convert them to coops or renovate them and raise the rent. Long time housing attorney Jennifer Levy says she’s never seen one worded quite like this though:
LEVY: No I have certainly never seen a buyout letter worded to make it look like the tenant has just won a sweepstakes.
REPORTER: Brockman, who pays under five hundred dollars for the spacious apartment, was not fooled by the letter, but he was curious to find out more:
BROCKMAN: What got me was this substantial offer…was their substantial the same figure I was thinking was substantial.
REPORTER: Brockman says he was told the starting offer was 15-thousand dollars. And even though his building is rundown and his block on 116th street is still not considered highly desirable to young professionals, Jennifer Levy calls the offer laughable:
LEVY: Let’s say that around where I work which is in downtown Brooklyn, buyout offers are typically between 100-thousand and 200-thousand dollars.
REPORTER: But the low offer is not the biggest concern for tenants like Ceasar Brockman who is part of an East Harlem housing group with several hundred members. Movement for Justice in El Barrio has been tracking problems in several Dawnay Day buildings. The group says tenants feel threatened by letters from management wrongly accusing them of owing money and of illegally subletting their apartments. The letters started coming from the prior landlord Steve Kessner and have continued under Dawnay Day. The tenant group considers them a form of harassment:
BLAKELY: I am …sort of upset and disappointed that we’ve been accused of the things we’ve been accused of and that we are as bad or worse then Steven Kessner.
REPORTER: Iain Blakely is the Director of Dawnay Day and says his company has done nothing wrong. He says a contract entered into with Kessner forces him to try to collect on any old money that’s owed. And as for the buyout letters, Blakely apologized if they sounded misleading:
BLAKLEY: It wasn’t a tactic to try to remove the tenants… They are entitled to say yes and they are entitled to say no and if they say no then we wouldn’t raise the matter again with them…..I do the same even in the UK with tenants…it’s almost like a market research to find out what tenants intentions are.
REPORTER: Blakely also says as long as tenants have legitimate leases and are up to date on the rent, they have nothing to fear.
Brockman has both of those things and plans to hold on to his place in East Harlem for as long as he can. He plans to reject the buyout proposal even if the 15-thousand dollar offer goes way up. He understands the value of what he has and says he knows he will never again find a 2 bedroom apartment that he can afford – especially since he wants to continue to be a Manhattanite:
BROCKMAN: It’s the most accessible borough. Everything’s close by. The stores, the transportation everything so I mean yes, I don’t wanna leave Manhattanite:
REPORTER: As for Blakely, he says Dawnay Day wants to build a better relationship with tenants. The tenant disputes have not deterred the British company though. Blakely says Dawnay Day is looking to buy more buildings in East Harlem and possibly elsewhere. For wnyc, I’m Cindy Rodriguez