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Comment by danielfoster | Hacker News Reader

I am not a lawyer, but based on my experience with New York tenant law the attorney is correct that the apartment management only needs to provide you with a means to enter and secure the apartment.

If I did not want to use the app, I would instead claim that the TOS of the app itself is an addendum to the lease and refuse to consent to the terms of the app. The building management would then need to figure out a way to get you into the your apartment without agreeing to the app terms.

I am surprised the attorney consulted for the article did not bring up this issue. I also would not expect to receive a lease renewal in this situation.

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I am not a lawyer, but based on my experience with New York tenant law the attorney is correct that the apartment management only needs to provide you with a means to enter and secure the apartment.

Meaning - if that "means" is a smartphone - then (unless the lease you signed says otherwise), the landlord is obligated to provide you with a smartphone (along with a fully paid contract).

Otherwise it's a lockout, which under NYC tenant law constitutes over harassment. Period, end of story.

You could definitely argue that you do not wish to or cannot have this app on your device. Buying a smartphone and installing the app for you would probably be the management’s next step. A cheap $100 smartphone costs relatively nothing compared to a year of NYC rent ($25k-$75k). So you would probably be stuck carrying two phones around.

I’m not sure a phone contract would be needed, especially if the building has WiFi.

So you would probably be stuck carrying two phones around.

The main point is that if landlords want to go this route -- they must provide means of egress, without any additional costs imposed upon the tenant (unless agreed to otherwise in the lease).

This idea that they can just decide to require that you go out and buy smartphone (or to run their app on your phone) in order to gain entry to your apartment -- again, unless you've agreed to a lease that says otherwise -- is (despite what both the lawyer and the columnist in the original article) just nonsense, in any jurisdiction (such as NYC) with a reasonably healthy suite of tenant protect law on the books.

The seems reasonable to me. The landlord is basically requiring you to agree to the Android or iOS terms as well as any terms of the app itself. You can't be forced to agree to these.

I wonder the same thing about work. If my job wants me to use some software can they require me to agree to the ToS? What happens if I don't want to?

I worked in a consultancy and had to sign contracts when visiting company clients and using their equipment.

It was always my understanding that I signed as a representative of the company, not personally.

Did you sign using your own name and signature?

Yes. I get where you’re going, but someone from HR also signed with their own name on my job contract. I wasn’t working for someone at HR. The company hired me.

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