A tenant is suing a major New York City landlord for $60 million, claiming they illegally evicted him and then re-rented his apartment — with his stuff still inside — despite an ongoing legal battle.
Justin Collins claims he was forced out of his $3,500-a-month one-bedroom apartment at 1264 Lexington Ave. on the Upper East Side because of “uninhabitable” and dangerous conditions, including a carbon monoxide leak when his beloved pooch was home alone for hours.
He has been on rent strike — and in litigation — since 2023.
But before a judge could rule whether he owes rent, or if he’s owed a rent-stabilized lease, the Moinian Group saw a chance to double-dip and rented the unit out while also collecting over $34,000 from his rental insurer, the suit claims.
That constitutes an illegal eviction, his $60 million suit claims.
“For me, this is about them following the law,” said Collins, who works in consulting and grew up with a police chief as a father. “That’s it. And to shine a light on the systemic abuse.”
Collins had even left some of his belongings in the apartment, like a computer monitor and a pair of window-unit air conditioners, which actually appear in the listing photos, he said.
The current resident in the apartment did not answer the door when a Post reporter knocked Tuesday.
“Owners wrongfully circumvented New York City and New York State Law which requires a landlord to evict a tenant in court and in doing so, failed to follow proper procedure,” according to the lawsuit.
The seven-story 24-unit building at 1264 Lexington Ave. has faced years of issues and litigation.
The building has received nearly 400 housing complaints and almost $150,000 in fines and emergency repair bills over the past few years, records show.
One longtime tenant of 34 years said she was “shocked, but I’m not surprised.”
“It’s part of a pattern,” said Carletta Downs, 66. “I’m shocked that they thought they could get away with it, but I’m not surprised that they did it.”
Moinian touts itself as “one of the largest privately held real estate investment companies in the world with a portfolio in excess of 20 million square feet,” according to their website.
Collins said his problems began right when he moved in April 2023, as he tried to sort out why his apartment had no power, and why Con-Ed had no record of his unit.
That’s because his unit — along with two others — were illegally created by splitting larger rent-stabilized apartments, with both serviced from the same electrical panel, according to court documents and city records. Buildings officials said recent work has “legalized” the units, though they still lack a final certificate of occupancy.
The melange of hazards also included broken floors, black mold and multiple carbon monoxide leaks, Collins said.
Moinian dismissed his concerns, Collins claimed, so he went on a rent strike that September and was sued months later for nonpayment.
After his dog was home alone for hours during a carbon monoxide leak in early 2024 — when firefighters eventually broke down his door — he started sleeping at his partner’s apartment.
“I was in constant fear because I didn’t know what I was going to come home to, if my dog was going to be safe,” he said.
When Collins left, Moinian claimed that he abandoned his lease.
Collins’s attorney, Leon Behar, said the apartment is actually rent stabilized since it was cleaved from a stabilized unit — which grants tenants an automatic lease renewal.
Weeks after Monian first filed a nonpayment suit against Collins, the property giant collected a $34,000 claim from his renter’s insurance on the unadjudicated debt, a move the suit calls “blatantly lying to the insurance providers so that they could be paid.”
Moinian’s attorney, Matthew Zwiren, told The Post that they “look forward to vigorously defending against these claims in court.”
Corey Friedman, 28, lives on Collins’ floor and told The Post on Tuesday that he hasn’t paid rent since March 2022 — and that he’s been trapped in the “death trap” elevator a dozen times.
He thinks the $60 million number might finally get Moinian’s attention.
“We keep trying to figure out, what’s their endgame?” Friedman said. “Why wouldn’t they want to just make sure that we can live here safely, that we can have an elevator that works, that we can have a building that’s not falling apart?”