The group’s lawyers are using a rare tactic, called 7A—which the Mamdani administration has endorsed—to sideline negligent landlords and compel repairs. Transferring management is a drastic step, but tenants say there is no other option.
“This what happens when u rent to Pigs,” landlord Bradley Zar wrote in a text message about his tenants last year, according to court documents.
One of Zar’s tenants, Quasar García, has been living in a homeless shelter since October. The NYC Department of Buildings deemed his Fordham Heights basement apartment uninhabitable, following months of persistent water damage from the building’s faulty pipes that had rotted the joists under the floor and leaked soapy, used water onto his belongings.
Upon inspection, DOB also determined that the building’s other basement apartment had been converted illegally, and handed down another partial vacate order for that unit, where García’s mother—who is disabled—was living. She’s been staying in temporary housing since December…