W. Haverstraw Pres. LP v. Diaz

Material Noncompliance of Lease Barring Unlawful Activity Established; Judgment Affirmed

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DECISION & ORDER

*1Appeal from a decision of the Justice Court of the Town of Haverstraw, Rockland County (Peter Branti, Jr., J.), entered November 21, 2015, deemed from a final judgment of that court entered December 3, 2015 (see CPLR 5512 [a]). The final judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded landlord possession in a holdover summary proceeding.PER CURIAMORDERED that the final judgment is affirmed, without costs.Tenant’s residential lease with landlord, West Haverstraw Preservation, LP, a federally subsidized low-income housing project subject to the rules and regulations promulgated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (Section 8), contained the federally mandated proscription against “drug-related criminal activity” on or near the premises (see 42 USC §1437d [l] [6]; 24 CFR §5.100), and provided that landlord may terminate the lease upon tenant’s “material noncompliance” with the lease terms which, among other things, required that tenant shall “not…use the unit for unlawful purposes” or “engage in or permit unlawful activities in the unit, in the common areas or on the project grounds.” After tenant was arrested in the premises for selling drugs, landlord served a termination notice based, in part, on tenant’s having violated the lease provision barring drugrelated activity in the premises, and commenced this holdover proceeding.At a nonjury trial, landlord’s witness testified to numerous complaints having been communicated to landlord, by other residents of the project, that vehicles and persons had been arriving at tenant’s premises at all times of day and departing after brief periods. The police were notified, and, according to police documents admitted into evidence, an investigation led to the execution of a search warrant at tenant’s premises, which was preceded by a controlled

W. Haverstraw Pres. LP v. Diaz

Material Noncompliance of Lease Barring Unlawful Activity Established; Judgment Affirmed

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