December 14, 2023

NYC’s worst landlord has 3,293 open violations across 306 apartments

New York City's worst landlord broke the city's record for most open housing violations two years in a row. NYC Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams on Wednesday released the 2023 "Worst Landlord Watchlist," an annual list exposing the city's most negligent property owners and ranking them by the number of hazardous housing violations in their buildings. Johnathan Santana took the number one spot for the second year in a row, breaking last year's record of 2,980 violations with a whopping 3,293 open violations across 306 separate apartments.
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April 1, 2022

NYC sues ‘worst’ landlord who has racked up over 1,900 violations

The city this week filed a lawsuit against landlord Moshe Piller, who has accumulated over 1,900 violations for dangerous conditions across 15 buildings he owns in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said the purpose of the lawsuit is to pressure Piller to repair his property or face "tens of millions" in civil penalties.
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March 2, 2022

City intensifies enforcement at 250 apartment buildings with 40,000 open violations

New York City will increase enforcement at 250 apartment buildings that together have roughly 40,000 open housing maintenance code violations. The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development on Tuesday announced the buildings, which include more than 5,000 households, will be placed in the city's Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP), which aims to hold bad landlords accountable and improve living conditions for tenants.
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August 16, 2019

City sues landlords for listing rent-stabilized Hell’s Kitchen apartments on Airbnb

. The city has named the owners of three Hell's Kitchen buildings in a lawsuit filed this week in Manhattan Supreme Court for operating illegal short-term rentals in rent-stabilized apartments, the New York Observer reports. The city says the owners of 410 and 412 West 46th Street and 452 West 36th Street have neglected their buildings, harassed tenants to get them to move out, deregulated units and kept units vacant to rent out on a short-term basis. Tenants of one building were left without gas or a roof for six months in 2015 due to a fire; the other two are awash in building code violations.
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October 14, 2016

Public Advocate’s office releases watchlist of NYC’s 100 worst landlords

New York City Public Advocate Letitia James released this year's annual "Worst Landlords Watchlist" Thursday at a tenants' rights rally in lower Manhattan. The interactive database lists the top 100 building owners who have racked up the most violations (like rats, roaches and dirty elevators, to name just a few) relative to the number of buildings they own. This data is gathered from the Department of Buildings and Department of Housing. Three of the city's five worst landlords according to the list have been on it for two years in a row. The top three offenders–Harry D. Silverstein, Allan Goldman, and Efstathios Valiotis–own buildings throughout the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens. Silverstein received 2,032 HPD violations and 50 DOB violations over 575 units in eight buildings.
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