What Happens If You Rent Out an Apartment and Later Decide That You Need It for Yourself?
Real estate ownership seems like a reliable way to ensure financial stability during your retirement. If you own a house, you will always have a place to live, and if you stay there long enough, eventually you will pay off the mortgage. If necessary, you can open your house to younger family members who are getting established in tougher financial circumstances than you experienced when you were their age. If your property is big enough for multiple housing units, then living in one while renting out the others can be a steady source of rental income. Yes, it costs money to maintain a rental property, but if your mortgage is paid off, a substantial amount of your tenant’s rent check stays in your bank account. Even though you, as a landlord, legally own the space where the tenant lives, some aspects of New York real estate law make it so that the tenant has more of a right to be there than you do. Estate planning lawyers sometimes make it sound like nothing can go wrong if your long-term plan is to stay in your home and rent out part of it, but the reality is more complicated. If you are a senior small-time landlord and have run into problems with your tenants, contact a Bronx real estate attorney.
Tenants Are Not at the Mercy of Your Aging in Place Plans: A Cautionary Tale
A Borough Park man owns several units in a multi-family building in Borough Park. The one where he has lived for decades is accessible only by stairs, and one of the units he rents out is on the first floor, so it is not necessary to climb stairs to enter it. The landlord has diabetes, and eventually complications from the disease forced him to retire from the workforce earlier than he had planned, leaving rent he collects from tenants as his main source of income. Because of his health issues, the landlord has trouble climbing the stairs to his unit and wants to move to the first-floor unit where a tenant is currently living; he originally proposed to switch apartments with the tenant.
Under New York law, a landlord needing an apartment for himself is not a reason to evict a tenant; even if one follows eviction procedures, the tenant will prevail in court if he challenges the eviction notice. In other words, lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. To make matters worse, this tenant has willfully stopped paying rent because the landlord has failed to maintain his unit in livable condition, and in this regard, the law is on his side, too.
Schedule a Confidential Consultation With a Bronx Real Estate Attorney
A real estate lawyer can help you if you are renting out an apartment but you want to move into it now that you have retired. Contact Cavallo & Cavallo in the Bronx, New York to set up a consultation.
Source:
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