Tl;dr If you sue your NYC landlord for withholding your security deposit for more than 14 days, I will file your papers, pay your court fees, and help you put together your case. In exchange, I’ll ask you to donate half of the punitive damages to charity if you win.

Contact Sue.Your.Slumlord@gmail.com for help.

The story

This year, I sued my NYC landlord using AI and won $2,000. I am going to sue them again next month and win $9,000 more. [*]

In New York City, if a landlord willfully withholds a tenant’s security deposit more than 14 days past the end of the lease, you can (and should!) take them to court. If you win, you’ll not only get your deposit back but a 2x penalty as punitive damages.

Every year, thousands of tenants have their deposits illegally withheld. Rather than taking their landlord to court, they send emails. If that doesn’t work, they usually give up. Maybe they’ll write a bad review on Google.

Firm emails are a good first step, but an email can’t put a lien on your landlord’s property, garnish their wages, or revoke their business license. That’s why you should sue. It sounds difficult, but with Chat-GPT, it’s straightforward.

The apartment

I leased my dream apartment from Centennial Properties NY last year. It was on a beautiful tree-lined street in the West Village. It had a private backyard, a cozy brick wall, and brand-new appliances.

I moved in on September 15th, and by the 20th, I realized I’d made a huge mistake. The heating and AC broke, the toilets wouldn’t stop flushing, and bugs poured in through holes in the walls and doors.

I described each issue as it arose in my building’s portal. My landlord would promptly mark each item as “fixed” without doing anything. After 5 weeks of emails with no responses and sleepless nights without heat, I told the building I was moving out.

The lawsuit

When I moved out, my landlord, Jake, refused to return the $4,500 security deposit and continued to charge me rent. [**]

I never intended to sue Centennial, but I did want to “spook” them a bit. So I asked Chat-GPT to make some scary-sounding legalese.

Chat-GPT screenshot

I was pretty happy with it. But I guess it was less scary to Centennial since they didn’t respond to that email.

I asked Chat-GPT if I had a case to take Centennial to court and get my money back. It said I did. At first, I wanted to pay a lawyer to take them to court. After seeing that for small enough cases, you could represent yourself, I decided to do that.

I went to City Hall in Tribeca, paid my $20 court filing fee (returned when I won my case), and got a court date for April of 2024.

To prepare, I bought a $35 account on DoNotPay.com, a site that uses a Chat-GPT-like AI to help you understand the law. It told me what laws Centennial had broken, and what I needed to prepare my case: documents, witnesses, and a statement. I printed these out and kept them in a folder until April.

The trial

Once I’d prepared, the trial itself was trivial: I just explained what had happened. I entered into evidence the documents I’d printed out ahead of time – proof of payments and my email exchange with the landlord.

Centennial sent a property manager named Daisy to represent them.

My favorite encounter from the trial:

Arbitrator: So you say the apartment was broken, but that you had a handyman fix the radiator and plumbing. When was that fixed?

Daisy: December 2nd.

(December 1st was my last day in the apartment)

Absurdly, Daisy volunteered the fact that she had been sued for illegally withholding deposits many times.

In hindsight, if only Daisy had spoken, I still would have won my trial.

7 days after my trial ended, I got a letter in the mail from the city saying I had won my case. Centennial Properties would owe me my entire security deposit, with interest.

The landlord

Steve Croman founded Croman Real Estate in 1990 and is one of the largest and most notorious residential landlords in the city. NY attorneys generals have been investigating him and his companies for 25 years.

He’s been charged with 20 felonies for which he spent nearly a year in prison, and forfeited 100 properties to management by the city. He’s been sued dozens of times and been forced to pay settlements of at least $13 million in the past 5 years.

But he rises from the ashes, rebranding along the way.

In 2016, Steve’s son, and my contact at Centennial, went viral for calling his Uber driver a f****t in a tirade with his frat brothers. Soon after, Croman’s company was rebranded Centennial Properties.

Last year, Centennial Properties expanded to 200 properties, and it became one of the largest residential landlords in the city.

The playbook

Despite the prison sentences, lawsuits, and consent decrees the Cromans remain undeterred. They’ve taken the security deposits of at least 10 individuals I’ve personally spoken to within the last 6 months alone. Despite the consent decree with the city, their buildings remain in appalling condition.

I can only conclude it remains more profitable to commit fraud and get caught than to not commit fraud at all.

The Cromans have a playbook, and it works as follows:

  1. Lease out good (ish) apartments
  2. Make the apartments really bad by breaking things, forcing the tenant to leave
  3. Keep the security deposit when they do leave

This strategy has been documented in magazine articles going back to the ’90s and Google reviews from 3 weeks ago.

The Cromans are relying on the fact that most people who have their deposit stolen are too afraid of the courts to sue.

I think Chat-GPT and DoNotPay should make people less afraid.

My deal

The Cromans are worth an estimated $600MM. They are not competent business people or property managers. If every tenant sued them for their deposit and the 2x penalty, they would not be able to turn a profit.

I want to help make that happen. If you are a current or former tenant of Centennial and want to sue, let this blog serve as inspiration! If you are confused along any step, please email me at Sue.Your.Slumlord@gmail.com.

And if you want, I will file your papers, pay your court fees, and help you put together your case. In exchange, I’ll ask you to donate half of the punitive damages to an effective charity if you win. [***]

Footnotes

[*] My trial was heard by an arbitrator and not a judge. I didn’t know this when I agreed to go to arbitration, but only a judge can award the 2x penalty. I am going to sue again with a judge to receive the 2x penalty.

[**] The security deposit withheld was $4,500 and the amount they continued to charge me for rent was $2,300, but because Centenial undercharged me for another month and I reversed some charges with my bank, the total balance they owed was more like $2,000.

[***] A rule for thee and for me! I’m donating half of my winnings to charity as well.