N.Y. Real Property Actions & Proceedings Law § 715: Grounds and procedure where use or occupancy is illegal

§ 715. Grounds and procedure where use or occupancy is illegal. 1. An

owner or tenant, including a tenant of one or more rooms of an apartment

house, tenement house or multiple dwelling, of any premises within two

hundred feet from other demised real property used or occupied in whole

or in part as a bawdy-house, or house or place of assignation for lewd

persons, or for purposes of prostitution, or for any illegal trade,

business or manufacture, or any domestic corporation organized for the

suppression of vice, subject to or which submits to visitation by the

state department of social services and possesses a certificate from

such department of such fact and of conformity with regulations of the

department, or any duly authorized enforcement agency of the state or of

a subdivision thereof, under a duty to enforce the provisions of the

penal law or of any state or local law, ordinance, code, rule or

regulation relating to buildings, may serve personally upon the owner or

landlord of the premises so used or occupied, or upon his agent, a

written notice requiring the owner or landlord to make an application

for the removal of the person so using or occupying the same. If the

owner or landlord or his agent does not make such application within

five days thereafter; or, having made it, does not in good faith

diligently prosecute it, the person, corporation or enforcement agency

giving the notice may bring a proceeding under this article for such

removal as though the petitioner were the owner or landlord of the

premises, and shall have precedence over any similar proceeding

thereafter brought by such owner or landlord or to one theretofore

brought by him and not prosecuted diligently and in good faith. Proof of

the ill repute of the demised premises or of the inmates thereof or of

those resorting thereto shall constitute presumptive evidence of the

unlawful use of the demised premises required to be stated in the

petition for removal. Both the person in possession of the property and

the owner or landlord shall be made respondents in the proceeding.

2. For purposes of this section, two or more convictions of any person

or persons had, within a period of one year, for any of the offenses

described in section 230.00, 230.05, 230.06, 230.11, 230.12, 230.13,

230.20, 230.25, 230.30, 230.32 or 230.40 of the penal law arising out of

conduct engaged in at the same real property consisting of a dwelling as

that term is defined in subdivision four of section four of the multiple

dwelling law shall be presumptive evidence of conduct constituting use

of the premises for purposes of prostitution.

3. For the purposes of this section, two or more convictions of any

person or persons had, within a period of one year, for any of the

offenses described in section 225.00, 225.05, 225.10, 225.15, 225.20,

225.30, 225.32, 225.35 or 225.40 of the penal law, arising out of

conduct engaged in at the same premises consisting of a dwelling as that

term is defined in subdivision four of section four of the multiple

dwelling law shall be presumptive evidence of unlawful use of such

premises and of the owner's knowledge of the same.

4. A court granting a petition pursuant to this section may, in

addition to any other order provided by law, make an order imposing and

requiring the payment by the respondent of a civil penalty not exceeding

five thousand dollars to the municipality in which the subject premises

is located and, the payment of reasonable attorneys fees and the costs

of the proceeding to the petitioner. In any such case multiple

respondents shall be jointly and severally liable for any payment so

ordered and the amounts of such payments shall constitute a lien upon

the subject realty.

5. For the purposes of a proceeding under this section, an enforcement

agency of the state or of a subdivision thereof, which may commence a

proceeding under this section, may subpoena witnesses, compel their

attendance, examine them under oath before himself or a court and

require that any books, records, documents or papers relevant or

material to the inquiry be turned over to him for inspection,

examination or audit, pursuant to the civil practice law and rules. If a

person subpoenaed to attend upon such inquiry fails to obey the command

of a subpoena without reasonable cause, or if a person in attendance

upon such inquiry shall, without reasonable cause, refuse to be sworn or

to be examined or to answer a question or to produce a book or paper,

when ordered to do so by the officer conducting such inquiry, he shall

be guilty of a class B misdemeanor.