Precedent Setting Cases
In landmark cases, and everyday litigation, our lawyers and legal workers strive to provide cutting edge legal support to Tenant Associations, neighborhood groups, individual tenants, shareholders and condominium owners seeking to enforce their rights and protect their homes.

In the decade since our partnership was formed, we have successfully represented groups and individuals in litigation which has:

Recent Decisions
Within the past year or so, we have been instrumental in halting the removal of buildings from the Mitchell-Lama program, eliminating rent increases for shoddy building-wide major capital improvements ("MCI's"), blocking the planned destruction of a historic community courtyard, protecting tenants in cooperative buildings, and defending tenants from specious owner occupancy claims.

Click on a case to view/hide its description:

• Protecting Mitchell-Lama Tenants

From 2007 to 2009, CDM has successfully represented the Tivoli Towers Tenants Association in fighting back an aggressive campaign by developers to remove the Crown Heights property from the Mitchell-Lama program, despite a deed covenant mandating that coverage continue for fifty years. The New York State Supreme Court and Appellate Division, First Department has upheld our position in four separate decisions.

View Tivoli Towers.



• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

With the help of architectural historian Barry Lewis (David Hartman's tour guide on PBS), our DHCR ace Jon Lilienthal has done a masterful job persuading the DHCR Rent Administrator that the landlords's plan to chop down all the tall trees to build a two story garage below the historical courtyard of Riverside Gardens, in Brooklyn Heights, would constitute an impermissable reduction in services.

View Riverside Gardens.



• Restoring Rent Stabilization

A lawsuit we filed on behalf of tenants at Independence Plaza in Tribeca has resulted in a favorable holding by the New York State Supreme Court raising doubts about a deveoper's ability to "buy out" of the City's J-51 tax exemption program, in an attempt to avoid the application of rent stabilization to a former Mitchell-Lama complex. This struggle goes on to trial.

View Independence Plaza.



• Protecting Tenants in Co-op Buildings

We succeeded in obtaining summary judgement dismising a holdover eviction proceeding filed by a cooperative sponsor against a tenant who moved in before the eviction plan became effective. In an unprecedented 2009 decision, the Housing Court relied upon the fact that the offering plan had already been accepted for filing by the New York State Attorney, resulting in the protections of the Martin Act being afforded to our client.

View Martin Act Protections.



• MCI's Shot Down

In 2009 we intervened on behalf of the Riverside Tenants Association in a successful opposition to the Landlord's Supreme Court challenge to the Agency's denial of hundred of thousands of dollars in stale and unjustified Major Capital Improvement ("MCI") rent increases. Jon Lilienthal, known as the "MCI buster," was able to save the tenants of 310 East 46th Street and 150 West 82nd Street millions of dollars in undeserved increases when the DHCR Rent Admnistrator denied or substantially reduced rent increase applications shoddy, partial, and/or untimely improvements.

View False Facades.
View Riverside MCI.



• Owner Occupancy Claims Rejected

In 2009, the Appellate Terms in Brooklyn and Manhattan affirmed Housing Court decisions denying petitions by owners to recover our client's apartments for their own use and occupancy. The Appellate Term in Manhattan affirmed a decision by the Housing Court, after trial, finding that the owner had undermined his claim of good faith by putting the building up for sale. (At trial, we had called the owner's real estate broker and accountant as witnesses for the defense). In the Brooklyn case, we were able to persuade the Appellate Court to abandon prior holdings and rule that a tenant is entitled to a factual description of the reasons the landlord is seeking the apartment. In a similar ruling in Manhattan Housing Court, the Court threw out petition based on a notice in which the landlord failed to explain why he wanted to move to Manhattan.

View Staying Put.
View Bad Faith.