THE RENT LAWS OF 2019 - AMENDMENT TO LANDLORD & TENANT LAW IN NEW YORK

Last summer governor Andrew Cuomo has signed the new package of landlord and tenant laws and regulations, significantly improving the situation of residential tenants in the state of New York, and more importantly, in New York City. Collection of new laws and regulations is known under the name of the Statewide Housing Security and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, or by a short name of the Rent Laws of 2019.

The 2019 Rent Laws lengthens the process of eviction (known as holdover proceedings) as well as recovery of owed rent (known as nonpayment proceedings).

Regarding nonpayment proceedings, instead of 3 or 5 day notice of nonpayment of rent, now landlord has to serve on tenant (by a process server) 14 day notice of nonpayment, warning tenant that in case of nonpayment of the owed rent within the 14 day period, landlord would file a summary nonpayment proceeding with appropriate landlord and tenant court. Besides, prior to service of 14 day notice of nonpayment, landlord has to mail to tenant, by certified mail, a letter advising the tenant about his or her failure to pay the rent for a period of at least 5 day or longer. The rules are unclear whether the notice of failure to pay the rent for 5 or more days should be mailed to tenant prior or after the service of  14 day notice of nonpayment. Like before, in case of tenant's failure to pay the owed rent within 14 days, landlord then has to file nonpayment petition with the clerk of appropriate landlord and tenant court, and then has to serve it by a process server on tenant. However, tenant's time to answer the nonpayment petition has now been lengthened from 5 to 10 days. Also, in case of marshal's eviction notices being served upon tenant, the latter has now a longer period of time to make yet another application to landlord and tenant court to demand stopping of the eviction, provided the tenant has a reasonable basis for the application.

Janusz Andrzejewski is a New York City based attorney writing on the law and other community important topics. You can reach him at (212) 634-4250, or through e-mail: jwandrzejewski@gmail.com or janusz@januszandrzejewski.com

MY AFTERNOON PROBLEMS WITH LIPITOR

My recent problem is how to stay alert at my work at 4 p.m. when all the excitements of courts are gone for the day and levels of energy are drained of me, while coffee seems not to help anymore in keeping me from falling asleep. For a long time I thought it has something to do with getting older, but it turned out to be a premature trail. Accidentally though, I have uncovered the real reason of my constant losses with the afternoon slumber: it's my cholesterol medication in the form of atorvastatin, known more widely under the name of lipitor. It seems there are many people online exchanging the problems caused by the usage of statins, of which atorvastatin, the medication invented by Bruce Roth, is the most widely used. Atorvastatin, or Lipitor, was acquired by the company Warner-Lambert, who in 2000 was purchased by Pfizer. Pfizer in 2013 had total assets of $172 billion and total equity of over $76 billion, whereas its 2013 revenues reached the figure of over $51 billion, and net income reached $22 billion. On November 30, 2011, Pfizer's patent expired and Watson Pharmaceuticals and Ranbaxy Laboratories started to produce the generic atorvastatin, but the prices did not fall considerably. Only in May,2012 when other companies started to supply the generic form of the drug, the prices of atorvastatin fell down to the level of $10. Many people suffer from various side effects of atorvastatin, supposedly some people even develop heart attacks or have strokes. Mine problems, at present time, seem to be limited to falling asleep in late afternoon and to headaches, although I have to admit that my liver has been in much better shape before I started to use atorvastatin, more than 10 years ago. I wonder what and when can be done about almost absolute power the big pharmaceutical companies have with respect to approval of new drugs by FDA. How is it that the research of the side effects of the new drugs, by the doctors and scientists on the payroll of the pharmaceutical giants, can decide about the certification of the new drugs by FDA?

Janusz Andrzejewski, an attorney based in New York City, writes on legal and other community important topics. You may contact him through telephone (212-634-4250

or, by e-mail: janusz@januszandrzejewski.com