A New York City landlord was fined a stunning $10 million after years of tenant neglect — but is that enough? Here’s what his tenants had to endure

“When mom needs to get to an appointment or she needs to get out of the building in the wheelchair, she has to wait a half hour for an elevator,” Nunez shared with News 12. “Sometimes the elevator doesn’t even come.”

The lack of hot water is also a major concern for Nunez.

“The home attendant comes here. She has to heat up water to wash and bathe mom,” said Nunez. “That’s very hard when you have a person who’s disabled and in a wheelchair.”

Tenants at Fordham Tower say they’ve repeatedly reported issues with the building to the landlord, but the issues are often ignored or repairs are delayed.

After years of this reported neglect, the landlord of Fordham Tower was recently issued a $10.14 million fine, one of the largest fines in the history of the NYC housing court.

Fordham Tower landlord faces over 500 violations

According to NYC’s Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD), Fordham Tower has amassed a staggering 2002 complaints in the last two years alone. All told, the building is currently facing 536 violations — including 145 classified as “immediately hazardous.”

HPD investigators further argued that landlord Karan Singh and his associates “engaged in this conduct with the intent of defying the law, intimidating their tenants, and avoiding enforcement action,” HPD attorney Benjamin Bisaro wrote in a statement shared with Gothamist. This reportedly included falsely claiming that repairs had been made.

“Respondents have failed to correct unsafe conditions that pose a threat to the health and safety of their tenants for years on end and display a callous disregard for immediately hazardous conditions like lack of heat and hot water,” said Bisaro.

Singh — who also owns another NYC apartment building in Morrisania, which ranked number 17 on the city’s Worst Landlord Watchlist of 2023 — appears to be no stranger to such allegations. Neither Singh nor his lawyers have responded for comment.

Fordham Tower residents are fed up

“Many times I had to wait one week, two weeks, three weeks just for a worker to help me,” said Garvey Moore, a longtime Fordham Tower tenant who’s had enough with management’s delays on repairs.

Zoe Kheyman, a Legal Aid Society attorney representing some of the building’s residents, says she has long been calling for action against Fordham Tower’s landlord.

"For years, our clients — tenants in buildings owned by Karan Singh — have endured unlivable conditions, chronic disrepair, and neglect,” Kheyman shared with Gothamist. “Many of our clients continue to suffer — elevators remain out of service, forcing elderly residents, people with disabilities, and families to climb up 17 flights of stairs during a dangerous summer heatwave. These conditions are inhumane, and immediate action is needed."

Time will tell whether the massive fine will lead to immediate action and considerable change at Fordham Tower, but Moore remains optimistic.

“I hope it does, one — remedy the problems that we have, and two — assist the tenants in dealing with this type of oppression on a major scale, as well as getting better management,” said Moore.