Tenants who are being evicted from their apartment by the homeowner’s landlord tenant lawyer for failing to pay rent frequently believe that if they tell the judge the apartment they are renting is “illegal,” i.e., the landlord does not have a rental permit, then the eviction proceeding will be dismissed. This issue, which even for a Long Island evictions lawyer was a grey area for some time, was treated differently and inconsistently from court-to-court, with some courts dismissing the petition due to the illegality of the apartment and with other courts holding that the absence of a rental permit has no legal significance in an eviction proceeding.
