I wish to welcome the out of town visitors to our city. You will find plenty to do during your stay, yes even during these cold almost winter days. For the lover of outdoor cold weather activities there are mountains to ski on as well as cross country runs not far from the city, and last week the outdoor rink opened for ice skating at the Empire State Plaza. You can rent skates for a modest fee and store your belongings in lockers. Of course in all seasons, Albany features outstanding cuisine to satisfy anybodies taste, world class concerts and sporting events at the Times Union Center and museums including the New York State museum located at the above mentioned Empire State Plaza. For a complete rundown of what to do, where to stay and dine, once you’re done with the blogs, hit the back button or click the following link. http://albany.com
I you never had to rent the place where you lived or were on the other side as a landlord, you are lucky. Disputes between the two have probably been around since they started building dwellings. The state of New York after much procrastination finally passed the “Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019.” Now if you are a landlord and you have decent tenant’s you probably have nothing to worry about when it comes to the newly passed law. I have been both a landlord and a tenant, most recently a tenant so don’t say I don’t know what I’m talking about. If you want to keep people living in your rental property long term the rules are pretty simple: make the rent a fair price. You are entitled to raise the rent every year a percentage of what is charged according to the law. Don’t. Every few years raise it 3% . If the tenant contacts you in regard to something that requires fixing. Fix it. And lastly and probably the most important. It doesn’t matter if the tenant goes year to year on a lease, or goes month to month, get the agreement in writing signed by both parties. Spell out clearly what is expected of you and the tenant. Don’t make out the agreement yourself. Have your attorney do it. Don’t go to Staples and buy one of those cookie cutter agreements where you fill in the blanks. That is my opinion as a prior landlord. Now for the landlords — for this blog we will refer to them as slumlords — who don’t give a crap who lives in their rental, does the absolute minimum when it comes to maintaining the property, and is just concerned with stuffing as much cash into their pockets as they can. According to me, you have no rights. The area around the downtown campus of SUNY Albany is a perfect example. There are dozens upon dozens of your classic multi story houses that are habitated by as many students as possible without the building collapsing. The students really don’t care if the place is falling down, as long as daddy from downstate pays the rent. And when the semester is over and the students vacate, the slumlord will put all the leftover furnishings by the curb so the city can worry about it. Of course he keeps the security deposit, which is usually the first and last months exorbitant rent. Guess what slumlord, you can’t do that anymore. The place will then be repaired to minimum standards ready for the next crop of tenants. Paint, what is paint. Then there are absentee landlords that live who knows where who habitual just don’t care about making the necessary repairs requested by the tenant which usually end up in small claims court after the tenant breaks the lease because the place is dangerous to live in, and of course the landlord keeps the security deposit Here the landlord seldom is the victor. I have not read the entire law, just summaries of it, but it is heavily weighted towards the tenant, as it should be. It is totally possible that nothing will change in how the slumlords handle their rentals. Just shovel the damn walkway in front of it.
From the segment of this blog I like to call “I just can’t help myself .” I cannot believe I’m saying this, but this time I agree with Trump. Now I am paraphrasing but in essence he said about these hearings: “Get it over with quickly.” And I could not agree with him more. Like him or not, they are not going to impeach him anyway, so let’s stop wasting so much money and time and get back to running this democracy. Hey senators and congresspeople, I wonder what we’d find in your closet. Follow me on Twitter http://@jonmazur The above content is my opinion and not that of the publisher of this blog.