2018 NY Slip Op 51958

Citation: 2018 NY Slip Op 51958
Jurisdiction: New York (state)
Source verification: cross_accepted_sealed
Original Source: https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2018/2018_51958.htm ↗

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occurs as a result, he or she may well be held accountable. The law is clear that, unless certain
conditions are met, cellar occupancy is prohibited by laws and regulations that have evolved to
protect the occupants' health and safety.

It is unclear from the motion papers whether allegations regarding the cellar units, including
those pertaining to adequate and proper means of egress, are accurate. Although there is no claim
that, during the past 30 years, anyone in the cellar level was ever harmed as a result of a lack of
compliance with the relevant statutes and codes, that is not necessarily indicative of the present
risk of harm facing the cellar units' lessees, their families, and their guests. Whether the cellar
units can be legalized is uncertain where, as here, the complaint's allegation in that regard was
made on "information and belief." Amended 2017 complaint, ¶ 116. Further, it is unclear
how long, if ever, it would take to legalize the cellar units, and whether DOB gave Stable a time
frame for filing a certificate of correction.

That the Board implemented measures in 2017 to address this issue is a step in the right
direction, but whether further steps are needed in the meantime to protect the safety of the units'
occupants remains unresolved. This Court is not unsympathetic to the fact that the cellar units'
lack of compliance with the certificate of occupancy is understandably a difficult and troubling
one with which Stable's Board members must grapple and attempt to resolve in this small
building, where presumably everyone knows the shareholders associated with those units, which
are not merely an investment, but their homes. Further, the potential loss of three of the ten units,