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Erin Lichy and her husband sued for $44K over unpaid rent. The RHONY couple fire back and reveal they didn’t pay because of rat infestation.
RHONY star Erin Lichy and her husband, Abe Lichy, are being sued for not paying rent on their former New York apartment, per Page Six.
However, the RHONY couple insist that this lawsuit is nothing more than their former landlord being greedy and money-hungry.
The complaint against the RHONY star and her husband was filed on Tuesday. The filing claims that Erin and Abe “owe $43,950 after allegedly falling behind on their $13,500-a-month rental payments” from October 1, 2021, to July 31, 2023. The amount also includes “other charges,” including late fees and $12,900 in attorney’s fees for the plaintiff.
The RHONY stars rented the fifth and sixth floors of a luxe Tribeca property, per court documents. The documents also accused Abe and Erin of “making payments late, avoiding late fees, bouncing checks or not paying at all.”
However, Erin and Abe deny that owe their former landlord a dime. In fact, they allege that all parties “agreed to withhold payments on two months rent in an abatement agreement due to the apartment’s unsanitary conditions.”
A rep for the RHONY couple tells Page Six:
“In October of 2021, after the Lichys spent tens of thousands on renovations out of pocket, which was agreed to be factored into the rental price, they were notified of elevator repairs that were expected to take a few weeks and took months during the dead of winter, forcing the Lichys’ small children to navigate and live amongst dangerous conditions including rodents. This resulted in a request for reasonable abatement due to all of the hazardous conditions that the landlord initially refused until the Lichys engaged a landlord/tenant attorney to which the landlord then agreed to an abatement.”
Meanwhile, Erin also took to Instagram to shut down the reports that she and Abe owed money to their former landlord over unpaid rent.
On her Instagram Stories, the RHONY star wrote:
“I want to take a moment to address what you may have been reading in the news cycle about me and Abe.
Unfortunately, NYC has a serious issue with landlords neglecting their buildings and their basic responsibilities to provide adequate living for their tenants. This is an issue that does not discriminate, and there were serious issues due to failed updates and basic maintenance that impacted our family during our lease. We spent months in an unfit apartment with broken promises. We poured a lot of hard work and a significant amount of our personal money into what was supposed to be our long-term home. The additional changes were to be made by the landlord, and when conditions worsened, we hired a well-known tenant attorney who advised us to withhold rent until such issues were remedied and an appropriate abatement as agreed upon, which would also incur late fees. This is a common practice with legal rights as tenants in NYC.
We continued to follow up for months to resolve the issue.
There was zero response, and we have receipts to prove that we tried to rectify before moving. It’s been 6-months with no communication until this week when they filed a lawsuit. This could have been settled amicably if they would have responded to any of our outreach. As someone who works in real estate and has been a landlord, I am appalled at his behavior, yet not surprised. There are thousands of New Yorkers who have had similar experiences and, unfortunately, have limited resources or knowledge to fight back, and I hope that my current situation be a lesson to landlords to take better care of hard-working tenants that live in their buildings. This should not happen to anyone, and I’m proud of me and my husband for taking a stand.”
The Real Housewives of New York is set to return for season 15 in 2024.
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