Perhaps the state (or the city) can have some sort of program like tax relief for low-income landlords who were affected by this.
- two properties (neither owned outright)
- tesla
I'm saying this as someone who is about to be 5x leveraged on a 2 fam property in NYC. What kind of leverage does this guy have 10x? 12x? More?
In NYC, CONED is not shutting off gas for non payment due to covid: https://www.coned.com/en/about-us/media-center/news/coronavi...
If the gas was off prior to covid, I guess you could find yourself in a catch-22, where you'd need to bring the account current before they turned it on, but then they aren't shutting it off at this point. It's unclear if he fought the fine with the city.
If this gets to court, I'm pretty sure he would have a cut and dry case that he as the landlord did not breach habitability (the gas worked) and that it was tenant misconduct (failure to pay the bill) that caused the gas to be shut off (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B) Now, I have no clue what kind of ruling the judge would make, but yeah.
Additionally, the covid laws that are protecting from eviction are also enabling mortgage forbearance: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/coronavirus/mortgage
I haven't had to go through that process, so I'm not sure how many people are denied, but the wording on this page makes it seem like you have a few options (including complaining to the state -- like his tenant did for the gas bill) before you are out of luck.
I feel for this guy, and as someone who intends to rent to a tenant in NYC this is scary, but I feel like my guy got way over leveraged, and because of it, this bad actor has hung him out to dry. There are a few pieces of this story that feel like they are left out to garner sympathy, which may or may not be warranted.
- why is he not getting or eligible for mortgage forbearance?
- why is he so over leveraged?
- why didn't he negotiate with his tenant about the relocation fee? (get the tenant to sign a paper, give the 10k (or less) as a rent credit on back-owed rent, get them out.)
------ Hilariously, I had a similar situation happen to me as a roommate -- One of the roommates I lived with stopped paying rent, wanted to AirBnB their room, and sleep on the couch, while using the AirBnB money to pay rent. They were few months behind on their portion of the rent, we worked with the landord, and the landlord agreed to credit back rent to get them out. Covid makes this more complex, but those with mortgages should be getting some protection based on the way the law is written. If he's not able to I think thats the real story and much more interesting.