Mohammed Atif, Respondent,

against

Erika Disapio, Appellant.

Erika Disapio, appellant pro se.
Mohammed Atif, respondent pro se (no brief filed).

Appeal from a final judgment of the District Court of Suffolk County, Fifth District (Vincent J. Martorana, J.), entered July 13, 2017. The final judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded landlord possession and the sum of $5,000 in a nonpayment summary proceeding.

ORDERED that the final judgment is reversed, without costs, and the matter is remitted to the District Court for a new trial.

In this nonpayment proceeding, landlord seeks to recover rent for the months of May and June 2017. Tenant interposed a pro se answer, containing, among other things, an affirmative defense and counterclaim that landlord had breached the warranty of habitability starting from January 2017, and an affirmative defense and counterclaim that tenant had improperly been charged rent since her tenancy began in December 2016 because the premises were being illegally rented without a permit.