NYC Secures $31M in Penalties Against Negligent Bronx Landlords; Seeks to Have Two Complexes Sold
NEW YORK—New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development has secured the largest court judgement against a landlord in its history—$31 million in penalties against the owners of Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers in the Bronx.
The record penalty against the owners Karan Singh and Rajmattie Persaud was announced by New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and HPD Commissioner Dina Levy on May 6. Singh and Persaud have been included on the Public Advocate’s Worst Landlords List.
The city also secured the appointment of an independent Chief Restructuring Officer as part of the court judgements, which also froze more than $900,000 from the owners’ bank accounts. Those funds are to be released to the Chief Restructuring Officer to ensure critical repairs are completed for residents across the approximately 490 apartments at the two properties that were at one time Mithcell Lama. The properties were removed from that program around 2009. The property has since fallen into neglect as tenants in both properties have reported years of neglect, including persistent elevator outages, lack of heat and hot water, vermin infestation and hundreds of unresolved violations.
The Mamdani administration is also calling on the Federal National Mortgage Association (commonly known as Fannie Mae), which has initiated foreclosure proceedings on the buildings, to work with HPD and tenants to identify a buyer. The two properties Robert Fulton Terrace (530-540 East 169th Street) and Fordham Towers (480 East 188th Street) were sold for $30,472,500 in September 2012. The litigation, first filed in 2024, was brought by the Anti-Harassment Unit within HPD’s Housing Litigation Division.
“For years, tenants at Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers have been forced to live with vermin infestations, chronic elevator outages and a lack of heat and hot water – while their landlords met their suffering with silence. Today, that neglect is finally met with consequences,” said Mayor Mamdani. “This administration secured the largest penalty in HPD’s history because no landlord is above the law. But penalties alone are not enough. We are taking control of the situation to make sure repairs are made and conditions are permanently improved. Every New Yorker deserves safe, dignified housing.”
“Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in a long and difficult history for these buildings and these tenants,” said Dina Levy, HPD Commissioner. “This is a story I know well: I organized tenants here back in 2009, when they were first coming out of Mitchell-Lama. Since then, tenants have been subject to decades of mistreatment, but that comes to an end today. Thanks to aggressive litigation by HPD’s Anti-Harassment Unit, we now have a record $31 million judgement against the owners. That gives us leverage in bankruptcy proceedings, which we’ll use to deliver better outcomes for residents.”
“The conditions at Fordham and Fulton Tower—chronic heat and hot water outages, broken elevators, infestations, and nearly 2,000 violations—are unacceptable,” said Zoe Kheyman, Staff Attorney in the Housing Justice Unit – Group Advocacy at The Legal Aid Society, which has represented the building tenants. “Our clients have pursued every remedy available, yet the landlord has failed to act. We welcome the city’s effort to transfer ownership to a responsible party and will continue fighting to ensure residents receive the safe, dignified housing they deserve.”
