If you love something, let it go. But, in the case of one Brooklyn home, it’s not always so easy.
A landlord is accusing a Section 8 tenant of orchestrating a brazen “shakedown” — using allegedly forged signatures, fake lease renewals, even a quiet exit to a new apartment — all while keeping its Borough Park condominium unit hostage, according to a new lawsuit.
Eretz One Realty paints a wild picture of its tenants gaming the system while renting one of the company’s apartments in the six-story condo on 15th Avenue, according to court documents filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Lipa and Mindje Spielman, along with their five children — Rivka, Moshe, Chaim, Nechama and Esther — have turned a 1,300-square-foot, four-bedroom unit into a legal battleground, Eretz’s attorney, Gary Rosen, told The Post.
Even though the family packed up and abandoned the apartment on March 31, court records say, they are refusing to surrender possession of the property unless they get a massive cash payout, Rosen said in an interview.
“These people have been in this apartment for many years,” Rosen said. “They moved to a new apartment and refused to give my client possession of the apartment. They’re basically trying to hold the apartment up for money to move out, except they moved out in March.”
Eretz, with an office in Long Island’s Roslyn Heights, built the six-story, 36-unit building at 3715 15th Ave. in 2009 and held on to a few units.
The Spielman family moved into one of those units in July 2012 at a monthly rent of $2,100. Lipa was the tenant/voucher participant, and Mindje participated in the scheme, the lawsuit claims.
In 2023, Eretz decided it wanted to sell the unit and did not renew the family’s lease. But the Spielmans hung onto it by submitting an unauthorized lease renewal to the New York City Housing Authority, a defendant in the case, with forged Eretz signatures to keep their voucher subsidies flowing, per court documents.
Mindje told The Post the allegations are all false and Eretz is using the courts “to scare us all.” What makes matters more difficult for the Spielmans, for their part, is the building being a condo — and New York’s Good Cause Eviction Law doesn’t protect them from eviction.
In late 2024, the landlord received a notice that NYCHA approved a rent increase to $3,400 a month — a request that Eretz claims it never made.
The Spielmans “created their own lease and gave it to the housing authority so they would keep paying [their] rent,” Rosen said in an interview. “The husband submitted a phony lease to the housing authority, signed my client’s name. It’s basically a shakedown.” Both accusations of forgery and fraud appear in the court documents, as reviewed by The Post.
Despite the landlord notifying NYCHA’s general counsel of the suspected forgeries in December 2024, nothing happened, Rosen claims. NYCHA allegedly ignored the fraud alerts, continued to pay out subsidies and eventually issued the Spielmans a voucher for a new apartment.
“I think it’s the Housing Authority not checking the tenants” and just making payments, Rosen said.
Since the Spielmans moved in they paid a total of $15,905 and NYCHA paid a total of $173,930 in rent, Rosen said.
“Imagine how much fraud is out there,” Rosen added. “Here you have a landlord telling the Housing Authority, ‘Look, there’s fraud here.’ It’s ignored.”
“They just want my apartment. Why are they suing NYCHA?” Mindje said.
Eretz’s attorney responded via email: “Because NYCHA can force the tenant to relinquish the apartment (Unit 202 at 3715 15th Avenue) if NYCHA is paying their rent at their new address.”
A spokesperson for NYCHA said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
In the spring, the Spielmans vacated the Borough Park unit, but, according to court documents, Eretz did not execute any surrender agreement. With no paying tenant since late March, Eretz has lost out on several months of income.
Instead, the landlord claims the family demanded a $100,000 payout just to hand over the keys.
“They said, ‘If you don’t pay it we’re not moving,’” Rosen claimed.
When Eretz offered a $25,000 settlement to clear the unit, the Spielmans rejected it, Rosen said, due to “greed.” And the couple threatened a lawsuit if Eretz went inside, Rosen said.
“Any money they’re trying to get — who should get it? Rosen posed. “The Spielmans or the Housing Authority, who paid the rent all these years? These people are just trying to get free money.”
Mindje pushed back saying, “But what does that matter?” Because NYCHA paid on their behalf, “That means that we paid.”
The couple doesn’t want to relinquish the apartment, “because they’re supposed to give up the money,” she said.
She claimed Eretz “promised” money in exchange for them moving out. She claimed one neighbor got $40,000, more than half in cash and the balance toward rent.
The landlord is seeking a court order declaring the fraudulent documents null and void, a full accounting and file correction from NYCHA, and compensatory and punitive damages from the Spielmans for fraud, breach of lease and unpaid rent. Plus, they want the apartment back.
“We can’t get legal possession of it without a court order,” Rosen said.
