Landlords, Tenants and Emes: Volume 5, Issue 42, Shoftim
- Sefas Tamim
- Aug 29
- 1 min read
August 30, 2025; 6 Elul, 5785 Sponsored anonymously for the Refuah Shleimah of Yair Nissan Ben Sara
QUESTION: I am a landlord in New York City (the “City”) and find myself involved with a dishonest tenant. We have signed a lease, and he has paid me my first month’s rent and refuses to pay me any further. He is purposefully taking advantage of the fact that the City's landlord / tenant laws are highly skewed against landlords, and he knows the difficulties that I face and the time it will take to evict him under City law. However, I do have one card I can play. I am somewhat certain that he has not retained a copy of the lease. May I lie to the City authorities and claim that we never had a lease and that my tenant was renting, “month-to-month?”....