Landlord’s Leases Raise Eyebrows

A local megalandlord has revised his leases after coming under fire for subjecting tenants to potential fines for a host of actions — from failing to clean dryer lint, to notifying city inspectors about code violations.

The lease agreement used by Monsey, N.Y.-based landlord Barnett Brodie on hundreds of apartments across New Haven has prompted different takes from local tenants, a legal aid attorney, a city housing code official, and the landlord himself.

The landlord-tenant contract has also raised questions about what qualifies as an appropriate method for running an efficient rental housing business — and what’s stepping over the line into threatening tenants with cascading debt.

“The only reason they’re there is that rules with no penalty, they’re entirely unenforceable,” Brodie, of Reichman Brodie Real Estate, told the Independent during a phone interview. ​“The purpose of the fees is just to force people to comply with the rules. Without a fee, there’s nothing I can do.”

He stressed that his company almost never levies those fines — for not taking out the garbage, for example, or for causing a furnace’s pilot light to go out.

When his company does act on the fines laid out in its leases, he said, it often waives what’s owed when the tenant starts complying with the relevant regulations.

Legal aid attorney Sarah Mervine and Livable City Initiative (LCI) Deputy Director Rafael Ramos had a different take on a Brodie lease document passed along by one of Mervine’s clients.

The manifold fines and fees included in the lease, Mervine said, function as ​“threats and deterrents” to a tenant who might want to raise concerns about the condition of their apartment.

She and Ramos singled out two of the lease’s provisions, one directly and the other indirectly related to LCI, the city’s housing code enforcement agency. Brodie has subsequently removed those parts, and sent out a mass email and clarification to his tenants. (See more on that below.)

Some of Brodie’s tenants, meanwhile, offered a wide range of responses when asked about what it’s like living in a property owned by Brodie’s ever-growing real estate company.

Some expressed frustrations with the fines and with Brodie’s manner with them. Some praised the New Yorker for running a responsive, attentive, and well-cared for business.

Some shrugged with indifference at charges that won’t apply to the rule-abiding.

“Everything’s a threat,” said one particularly unhappy Fair Haven renter (who asked to remain anonymous out of a fear of retribution). ​“If you don’t do this or that, there’s a threat behind it. Why buy properties if you don’t want to deal with people? He has no empathy.”

A Blake Street renter named Lenchantel Holmes had nearly the exact opposite response.

“I think he’s a very fair person,” she said. ​“I think he’s also very business-minded. He’s a respected landlord, and his apartments are beautiful.”

As for the fines in the leases, she said, ​“His leases are fair. That’s why you have to read what you sign. I don’t find his fines unreasonable. If people realize they have to pay for something, I think they’re invested in it.”

When the Independent last interviewed Brodie in May 2019, the New York-based landlord said he owned more than 340 rental housing units in New Haven, with particular concentrations in Fair Haven, the Hill, Beaver Hills, and Newhallville. Nearly two years later, Brodie said he owns ​“substantially more” local apartments now; he declined to say exactly how many.

As for any tenant concerns about his personal demeanor, he said, ​“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion.”

“I’m running a business over here,” he continued. ​“I really do have a very strong backbone. I’m not as compassionate as some others. I view my job here to provide the best service. I don’t understand the emotional part of the whole thing, with extreme exceptions … That’s not my job over here, to be a sweetheart. My job is to provide an amazing service. It’s to make sure that everything is working, everything is running smoothly. That’s my agenda.”

Click here to read the full Brodie lease document, with all tenant- and address-specific information redacted.

Don’t Call LCI?

In separate interviews, legal aid attorney Mervine and LCI’s Ramos identified two parts of Brodie’s lease as particularly concerning from a housing code enforcement perspective. Brodie has subsequently removed both from his leases.

One of those sections, 3.2, posited a fine for any tenant who does not first report a maintenance concern to the landlord through the property management company’s online portal. ​“You shall report via your online portal any damage or problem immediately upon discovery or you may be held responsible for the cost,” that section read.

Mervine said that Brodie’s company used that section to fine one of her clients $360 for calling LCI about alleged problems with their apartment’s heat and an allegedly broken window.

“There’s nothing wrong with a landlord saying you should report to me before LCI because they want to fix whatever’s wrong,” Mervine said. ​“That’s fair.” What’s worrisome, she said, is that part of the contract being used to threaten a $360 fine if a tenant calls LCI first.

LCI offers a free service, she said. If the city doesn’t issue a fine related to a housing code inspection, then tenants should not have to bear the brunt of a charge from the landlord.

Ramos pointed out potential housing safety implications of this provision.

“I think that charging tenants for calling LCI before the landlord could discourage filing a complaint,” he told the Independent. ​“It can be a dangerous matter.” If someone’s smoke detector isn’t working, for example, a tenant should feel empowered to call city housing code inspectors without having to worry about getting charged by their landlord.

Brodie said that this particular fine of Mervine’s client related to a larger dispute between the landlord and tenant. He accused the tenant, who declined to speak to the Independent directly, of removing previously installed carbon monoxide detectors, of calling LCI without giving the landlord ample time to respond, and of complaining of the cold when the temperature in their apartment was 72 degrees.

Brodie also insisted that the purpose of that particular maintenance-reporting fee ​“is to take care of issues efficiently” by requiring them to be directed to his company first. He said he didn’t realize that the provision could be interpreted as a deterrent to calling LCI.

The landlord said — and Mervine and Ramos confirmed — that he waived the $360 fine after the attorney and housing code official reached out.

Brodie also removed that section from this particular tenant’s lease, from all future leases for other tenants, and — after speaking with this reporter — sent out a mass email to all his local tenants, telling them explicitly that they should not be afraid to call LCI.

“In no way did this part of the lease restrict a tenant from contacting LCI, if the landlord didn’t take care of an issue,” that letter reads. ​“Even though the intent of this part of the lease was good, nonetheless, since it can be mistaken as a restriction against contacting LCI it is hereby removed from the lease. You still need to contact the landlords maintenance department in the event of a maintenance issue. And LCI should be used as needed.”

Brodie also removed another section that Mervine and Ramos singled out for concern — a part of the lease that granted the landlord ​“permission to complete any document necessary for any City official and sign on your behalf as your attorney in fact. Including the ability to sign a waiver of entry for LCI.”

LCI conducts random inspections of apartments registered through the city’s rental licensing program, Ramos said. Before doing such an inspection, the agency contacts a tenant to see if they’re comfortable with having a city official visit their residence. The lease as originally worded appeared to indicate that the landlord — and not the tenant — could prohibit LCI from visiting a property on the tenant’s behalf.

“Honestly, I did not even know [that LCI waiver language] was there,” Brodie said about his company’s lease. ​“I got this lease as a boilerplate from somebody else numerous years ago.”

When asked if he’s ever invoked that particular section of the lease, he replied, ​“Are you crazy? I’ve never signed a document on somebody’s behalf.”

In that same letter that Brodie sent out to his tenants Thursday afternoon, he wrote, ​“In some leases it states that the landlord has POA [power of attorney] to sign a waiver for LCI on behalf of a tenant. This was an oversight. It was in the boiler plate lease I used to draft my lease document and I didn’t take it out by accident. In all the years this has been in the lease I have never once signed a document on behalf of a tenant. Nor was I aware of its existence. I do apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.”

Fines For: Lint, Trash, Pilot Light, Eviction …

Mervine said that the LCI-related clauses weren’t the only parts of the lease that had her worried on behalf of Brodie’s tenants.

There were also the 10-plus fines and fees detailed throughout. Some are familiar provisions of Connecticut rental contracts. Some chart some new tenant-fining territory.

Those fines and fees in Brodie’s rental lease include (in ascending order):

• $25 for changing a lock code.
• $25 for not bringing the garbage and recycling bins to the curb the night before waste collection and then back to the side of the property the following morning.
• $25 for ​“wasting” a maintenance person’s time if someone has to come out to repair a dryer that has broken due to uncleaned-lint.
• $50 for any bounced check or rejected payment.
• $50 if a tenant causes a furnace’s pilot light to go out and it needs to be lit again.
• $100 flat fee for paying rent after the 10th of the month.
• $100 each time a tenant does not clean the lint out of the dryer.
• $250 if a landlord sends a notice to quit to start an eviction
• $300 if the tenant fails to vacate an apartment by 5 p.m. on the last day of a lease, plus a prorated rental amount for the next day.
• $360 as a ​“document processing fee” for violating the term of a lease, plus the landlord’s brokerage fees related to reletting a unit.
• $500 if a landlord starts a summary process (eviction) lawsuit.
• $500 if a landlord has to hire a marshal to execute an eviction.

In addition to those, Mervine pointed to an apparently all-purpose $360 fine for each violation of any part of the lease.

She pointed to a section that says that the landlord can penalize a tenant equivalent to one month’s rent if, after giving notice that they plan to move, the tenant doesn’t keep their apartment in ​“immaculate condition” and/or fails to let the landlord show their apartment to prospective tenants ​“any time between the hours of 8:30 AM and 7:30 PM seven days per week”.

She pointed to another section that states that ​“each payment is first applied to the oldest outstanding charge.” Mervine said that section could be interpreted as meaning that the landlord could take a tenant’s paid rent, allocate it towards paying down a previously unpaid, non-rent related fee, and then claim that the tenant was behind on rent.

And she described as both baffling and alarming a part of section 4.5 that states that a tenant is ​“guilty of a misdemeanor” if their rent is delinquent and if they do not vacate their apartment by the date specified in the ​“Lease Contract termination notice.”

One other provision that caught this reporter’s eye, a part of section 4.7 called ​“waiver of jury trial,” was relatively low on Mervine’s list of concerns about Brodie’s lease. That’s because Connecticut does not have jury trials in summary process cases. ​“So waiving a jury trial in the lease doesn’t waive anything,” Mervine said, ​“and is probably something left over from New York.”

Overall, Mervine said, Brodie’s lease has sections that are ​“absolutely against public policy,” such as the now-removed LCI-related provisions.

“It has some things that are just illegal, or charges that have nothing to do with anything,” like fees that appear not to be related to how much they might cost to remedy.

“Then it has a lot of language, for lack of a better word, to scare you.”

“Without A Penalty, What Good Is The Rule?

When asked about all of the fines and fees detailed in the lease, Brodie said he almost never charges tenants with any of those penalties.

The fines and fees exist primarily to let tenants know that their could be monetary consequences to not following the rules laid out in a contract that both parties agreed to.

“When you have a rule without a penalty, what good is the rule?” he asked. ​“They’re only there for enforcement purposes.”

He said that some of the prospective fines, like the one related to not taking out the garbage, come from the fact that the city charges property owners if trash and recycling bins are not taken out to the curb and returned to the side of a home in a timely manner. Other fines, like the one related to cleaning dryer lint, stem from the fact that he’s had to deal with a number of tenants over the years who did not clean their dryers — and the machines subsequently caught on fire or otherwise broke.

“They’re not meant to penalize people,” he said about these fines and fees. ​“In the past two years, maybe I’ve charged two people. They’re just there to create an element of efficiency. A rule without the ability for a penalty almost makes it not a rule.”

When tenants are made aware that these financial penalties are a possibility, he said, ​“All of a sudden they comply.”

Brodie said that, in the instances when his company does issue a lease-related fine or fee, he sometimes waives that charge based on a tenant appeal. He said that on Thursday a tenant who usually pays rent on time fell asleep Wednesday night, woke up at 12:30 a.m., and was hit with an automated $100 late fee for not paying rent by the 10th. When that tenant reached out to him, he said, he dropped the charge.

Brodie also repeatedly said that some of the parts of the lease that Mervine raised concerns about are leftovers from a lease template he has used for years and does not know line-by-line.

“I did not read every part of this lease,” he said.

Regarding the section of the lease that claims that someone is guilty of a misdemeanor if they violate a part of the lease, he said, ​“Obviously it’s not true. I’m not a judge over here. I can’t tell somebody that they’re guilty of a misdemeanor. So I made a mistake. It was there because I did not know it was there.”

When adopting this lease from another landlord, he said, ​“I concentrated on the paragraphs that made a difference. Somebody gave me a lease and said it’s good. I’m not a legal expert. I didn’t know if it made any sense.”

Furthermore, he said, ​“who the hell cares what it says in this stupid contract” about misdemeanors or any other part that might not be 100 percent true, but that no tenant has yet pointed to with concern to until Mervine and her client.

“I’ve got no vacancies,” he said. ​“Nobody wants to leave my apartments. The facts speak for themselves. Literally, I’ve got 117 applications a month. I’ve got a waiting list of 47 people.” He pointed to his YouTube channel (watch one such video above) as showing the apparent high quality of his rentals.

“My intent is to provide the best housing, the most safe and secure premises in the city to every tenant in the city. As soon as I hear anything that will better the lives of the tenants, I do everything I can.”

He said that he took Ramos’s and Mervine’s concerns about the LCI-related provisions to heart, then acted accordingly — by taking them out of the lease, by waiving Mervine’s client’s fees, and by letting his tenants know that those parts of the lease are now gone.

“I view my job to be to provide the best possible service in the most efficient way possible. That is my job. If anybody can enlighten me in a way to do it better, great.”

Tenant Takes: From ​“Picky” To ​“Terrific”

Asked about their landlord and their leases, tenants from across the city gave a range of answers, from effusively positive to indifferent to angry and upset.

Elba DeArce, 66, said she has lived in the groundfloor apartment at 114 Lloyd St. in Fair Haven for two decades. She said she receives Section 8 federal housing assistance, and pays $521 each month as her portion of the rent.

She said her previous landlord, Juan Salas-Romer of NHR Properties, was the best property owner she’d ever dealt with. He would come by regularly to check in on and talk with tenants. He would even bring a Christmas ham over during the holidays.

She said she has been less happy since Brodie took over nearly two years ago.

“He’s real picky, and he complains a lot,” she said.

Last August, she said, she was fined $100 for paying her rent two days later after the 10th of the month. (State law allows tenants to pay rent as late as the 10th of the month without incurring any late fees.)

DeArce said that she had been visiting her dad in Puerto Rico, her flight was delayed, and she wasn’t able to pay rent on time. She said that she had been laid off from her job as a tutor in an after-school program earlier in the year due to the pandemic, had struggled to get on unemployment, and could barely afford the late fee. She said she called and spoke with someone from management, trying to explain that she would be late with her rent, but that they wouldn’t scrap the bill.

Brodie acknowledged that his company charged DeArce an automatic late fee when she failed to pay rent by the 10th of the month. He said he had no records of her ever reaching out to his company to try to negotiate or explain the delay. He also said that DeArce still should have been able to pay her rent on time through an online portal, which she had used before.

Late fees exist for a reason, he added: If he didn’t pay his property taxes on time, he’d be fined, too.

A James Street renter named Sally Wang said she has lived in a Brodie-owned apartment for about a year. She hasn’t been slapped with any fines yet.

She said she was a bit taken aback to see in her lease that she would be fined if the apartment’s floor wasn’t ​“waxed” if she ever decides to leave.

Another tenant on Wolcott Street says she’s been living in a Brodie-owned apartment for a month, since moving from New York to New Haven to attend grad school. She said that the lease looked fine to her, and that she’s been happy in her apartment so far.

Lechantel Holmes, who lives on Blake Street, was unequivocally positive in her take on Brodie as a landlord. She said she is trained in landlord-tenant mediation, and, based on her personal and professional experience, Brodie’s company has been ​“terrific.”

“He communicates very well with his tenants,” she said. ​“Everything is done through the computer.” He said that he could probably ​“write a book about being a good landlord.”

Farren Avenue renter Gladymaris Serrano agreed.

“I’ve been here a long time,’ she said. ​“And the house is absolutely gorgeous and well-maintained. I have no complaints or issues. Barnett, he made the renting process really easy and quick.” Whenever something breaks, she said, she puts in a maintenance request online, and someone responds ​“right away.”

As for the fines, Serrano said, ​“I’m in law school. People tend not to read. When someone wants to rent an apartment, they tend to not read the leases completely. When they move out, they’re surprised” by fines related to violations they shouldn’t have committed.

Serrano said her approach to renting has kept her in good standing at her apartment so far. ​“If you leave the apartment in good condition,” she said, ​“you don’t get a bill.”