I have written about my maintenance guy problems in my park in central New York State previously. I kissed a few frogs. J.B. had his good points but he dropped the ball one time too many and he was a slob. The guy I hired to replace him, Allen, seemed like a breath of fresh air – until he started working. He didn’t return texts, emails or voice mails. It took me a month of nagging to get him to install voice mail on his phone. During a spring snow storm, he broke the skid steer and left the park unplowed. He bought a pitbull with a neck – I swear to God – as thick as my waist. He broke a master meter antenna I ordered. His work was shoddy and dangerous. He almost came to blows with a park resident who helped him install some plumbing when they guy told him that he was not a good carpenter.
A friend recently asked me if any of the frogs I kissed turned into a prince. I said, “No – and I don’t swing that way”.
The contract that I signed with Allen specified that he would have the right to live in a park-owned home next to the pole barn so long as he was employed by the park. Labor was compensated at $15 per hour. Cash payments were offset to the extent of the fair market rental value of the home where he lived. If he blew through that, his paycheck would cover the difference. Both he and I had the right to terminate the contract with thirty days’ notice.
J.B. had had a similarly-drafted contract. When I fired him, he got a month’s notice and a few grand, paid in two installments. The first was paid when he signed a contract agreeing to move out and not to sue or defame the park or me. The second was paid when he was gone.
When Allen got the boot, he got a deal similar to J.B’s, albeit with a smaller severance amount, because of his shorter tenure. He was eighty-sixed in late March of this year. When he signed the severance agreement, he got $500 on signing the agreement and the right to another $500 if he was moved out, per the agreement, no later than April 30.
Today is May 1, and he is still there.
A week ago, I told the attorney who represents me in central New York that we might have an Allen problem. A few days later, he sent me an email with wording to the effect, “I can’t believe I never saw this before, with a link to New York State Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 713(11). The statute lists the causes of action to start a special proceeding (i.e., an eviction) where no landlord-tenant relationship exists. Each sub-section states a context in which a special proceeding can be begun in certain circumstances (squatters, sharecroppers, foreclosures and tax auctions). Sub-section 11 states that a special proceeding may be commenced against a person who entered into possession of the property in question as an incident of employment by the petitioner, if the applicable employment has ended. In fact, it goes farther. The flush language at the top of the section says that a special proceeding under Section 713 can be commenced after a ten-day notice to quit is served on the respondent. However, no ten-day notice is required in the case of termination of employment. Here is the Subsection in full:
[A special proceeding may be commenced against a person if t]he person in possession entered into possession as an incident to employment by petitioner, and the time agreed upon for such possession has expired or, if no such time was agreed upon, the employment has been terminated; no notice to quit shall be required in order to maintain the proceeding under this subdivision.
I read this to mean that you don’t even need to serve notice upon a respondent if the respondent is in possession of your property pursuant to a now-terminated employment agreement. At the very least, you can commence a proceeding after service of a notice with a ten-day term, instead of the usual 30 day term. Since the proceeding is not for non-payment, there should be no get-out-of-jail-free card for vacuous ERAP applications. I have asked the attorney to proceed with all due speed.
Mark Twain said that, for a river boat pilot, every river is, in fact, two rivers. There is the river you see when you sail upstream, and there is a very different river that you confront when you sail downstream. I had thought that I knew the eviction process – but it looks like I had only just begun to scratch the surface of one of multiple rivers.