How a lone tenant is holding up a $70 million condo deal
NEW YORK — Ahmet Nejat Ozsu won’t budge.
For 15 years, he has lived in the same apartment — a one-bedroom with an enviable private deck on the top floor of a building on the Upper West Side.
So when a developer, the Naftali Group, bought the Manhattan building for $70 million in June and told tenants that they had to move, Ozsu made plans to stay. He could not be swayed with a buyout offer of $30,000, an eviction notice or even a $25 million lawsuit that Naftali recently filed against him. In April, the new landlord placed an industrial air filter outside Ozsu’s door, and the blower has been droning nonstop, driving him and his 13-year-old boxer mix, Penelope, up the wall.
Still, Ozsu won’t move. “It’s two things: I have the right to be here, and I have no place to go,” he said.
The Naftali Group says Ozsu is angling for a seven-figure payout and has put its multimillion-dollar investment in limbo, setting off a landlord-tenant stalemate that is the stuff of legend in New York City real estate. But the pandemic has added a new twist: A renter protection enacted to prevent evictions during the crisis could help drag out the standoff for years.
Under normal circumstances, Ozsu, 52, might have already been evicted from the building at 215 W. 84th St. His apartment is not rent stabilized, and like many of his neighbors, he was on a month-to-month lease that the new landlord was not obligated to renew.
But until recently, Ozsu, a freelance software engineer, was unemployed. In January, Ozsu applied for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, a state program created during the pandemic to help tenants pay overdue rent. In most cases, a tenant cannot be evicted while their application is open. If Ozsu’s request for aid is approved, he could be entitled to stay in the apartment for at least another year — time he says he’ll need to build up savings from a job he began in March. Of the building’s 128 apartments, just 16 still have occupants, said Y. David Scharf, chair of Morrison Cohen, a law firm representing the developer. Ozsu is the only tenant who has not agreed to move, he said.
Ozsu and Adam Leitman Bailey, his lawyer, believe that the air filter and a security camera recently installed in the hallway outside his apartment are bullying tactics.
Scharf said the air filter “is actually for his health and safety,” although there wasn’t active construction near the apartment during a recent visit.
“There has been no harassment, period, full stop,” Scharf said, adding that there are several cameras in the building. The one near Ozsu’s apartment was installed because of “general security issues,” Scharf said.
Ozsu moved into an apartment in the building, called the Eagle Court, in 2006 on the recommendation of a friend. He landed the coveted top-floor unit a year later, with its deck that overlooks the Upper West Side. His job as a software engineer helped him keep up with rising rents through the years. By October, however, Ozsu was unemployed, had depleted his savings and could no longer pay the $3,350 rent on his 700-square-foot apartment.
Scharf said Ozsu was simply biding his time.
“Through counsel, he has made it clear he’s holding out for a ransom of north of a million dollars,” Scharf said.
Ozsu insists he is exercising his rights to stay in the apartment under the pandemic renter-relief program. Recently, he tried to pay back the roughly $13,600 rent owed before the rental-assistance application was filed; the owner’s legal team said it would reject the payment, according to court filings.
Ozsu said that shortly after the $25 million suit was filed against him, he was offered around $30,000 to leave the building but rejected it. Naftali Group declined to confirm the offer.
It’s also a matter of principle, Ozsu said. “It’s the defamation of my character — that’s when I said, ‘No, I’m going to fight this.’ ”