Eden Ct. Homeowners Assn. v City of New York
Annotate this CaseDecided on January 30, 2014
Civil Court of the City of New York, Richmond County
Eden Court Homeowners Association, Claimant,
against
City of New York, Defendant.
30101/13
Douglas Cohn Esq. for the City.
Eden Court is self represent
Philip S. Straniere, J.
Claimant, Darnell Court Homeowners Association, commenced this day small claims action against the defendant, City of New York, alleging that the defendant had negligently improperly classified certain real property owned by the claimant causing it to be assessed unwarranted real property taxes.
The claimant moved to amend the name of the claimant to Eden Court Homeowners Association. This motion was granted without opposition.
Currently before the court is defendant's motion to dismiss the claimant's complaint on the ground that the Civil Court, and in particular the small claims part, lack subject matter jurisdiction to address the allegations of claimant's complaint.
The real property which is the subject matter of this action is vacant land in the Tottenville section of Staten Island known as Block 8028 Lot 81. Claimant asserts that this property is in fact the street which provides access to the ten homes which make-up the Eden Court HOA and that although the underlying issue is the assessment of real property taxes, the essence of their cause of action is the City's negligence in properly classifying and assessing this block and lot. The court questions whether the property is a "street" as alleged by the claimant, and if a street is it either dedicated to the City of New York or is it privately maintained common area subject to taxation. Neither party addressed this issue. Instead they focused on the procedural issues created by claimant's complaint. It should be noted that public records show a deed dated May 28. 1996 of this lot to the Eden Court HOA. There is nothing to indicate that the [*2]lot is a street or an area to be used for ingress and egress to the homes abutting the property. Considering title is in Eden Court, the court must question who filed the original action using the name Darnell Court HOA.
New York City Department of Finance records disclose that this block and lot has a Tax Class 4 (commercial /other) and a Building Class of V-1, meaning it is considered for tax purposes as "zoned commercial or Manhattan residential." Although this is a residential condominium development, this lot does front on Main Street in Tottenville, which in the past was primarily a commercial district for that town. This may explain why the defendant has it classified as it does. Perhaps when the developer of the condominium built the units, it failed to contact the City about reclassifying this one lot from one which was remaining vacant to be used as a common area roadway solely for the benefit of unit owners' or whether it was to dedicated to the City as a mapped street for public access to the development.
The tax year in New York City runs from July 1 to June 30. Department of Finance records disclose that for the 2006-2007 tax year, the assessed value for this lot was $5,004.00. In 2007-2008 it was $5,490.00 while in 2008-2009 it rose to $7,155.00. Then without an apparent explanation the assessed value jumped to $42,705.00 for 2009-2010 and skyrocketed to $85,410.00 for 2010-2011.
Tax year 2011-2012, again without any explanation, saw the assessed value drop to $450.00. It remained that amount for 2012-2013 and for 2013-2014.
There is no evidence that the claimant or a managing agent, if it had one, ever sought to challenge any assessment or classification by the Department of Finance in any year during the statutory period to challenge a classification or assessment, January 15 to March 1 for residential properties or January 15 to May 10 for non-residential properties. The procedure for such a challenge is set forth in the New York City Charter. Generally, a litigant must exhaust all of its administrative remedies available before seeking the intervention of the court system. There is no showing that the claimant even attempted to seek an administrative determination as to the explanation for the roller coaster nature of the assessment history.
The court system is available to review a real property tax assessment, however, the exclusive method for such relief is pursuant to Article 7 of the Real Property Tax Law (RPTL), specifically RPTL §700. This Article requires that any such action be commenced in the Supreme Court within thirty days of the "final completion and filing of the assessment roll" [RPTL §702] with the petition alleging that the assessment is "excessive, unequal or unlawful or that real property is misclassified" [RPTL §706]. There is no evidence that claimant sought to avail itself of this statutory remedy. The failure to utilize the existing statutory procedure does not create a right to reclassify the nature of the action as something other than what it really is so as to use the Civil Court.
Rather than comply with the procedures set for review, claimant filed a Notice of Claim against the defendant City (Claim #2012EWO26011). Neither party produced a copy of the Notice of Claim. It is impossible for the court to determine on what date it was filed, although [*3]the small claims court file card contains the allegation of the claimant that it was filed on July 18, 2012. Although the summary on the card lists the claim as "failure to correct property taxes" and "failure to respond to FOIL request," both of which seem to be seeking equitable relief (which is not available in the small claims part) rather than money damages, the opposition filed in regard to defendant's motion to dismiss, alleges that the cause of action is "negligence" in failing to properly assess the property and "negligence" in failing to respond to a FOIL request. It should be noted, like the Notice of Claim, the FOIL request is not made part of the record.
For the sake of argument, even if the court were to entertain claimant's creativity of trying to make an application to correct a tax classification or assessment into a negligence claim, claimant's cause of action would be time barred. A Notice of Claim alleging negligence must be filed within ninety days of the occurrence of the alleged negligence [General Municipal Law §50-e]. Taxes in New York City are fixed as of January 15 of each year. This means that to challenge the 2009-2010 assessments, a Notice of Claim should have been filed by April 15, 2009 and to challenge the 2010-2011 assessment the Notice of Claim should have been filed by April 15, 2010. (The court is assuming that the claimant seeks to challenge the assessment for those two years, as they were for a substantial amount while those for the subsequent years had an assessed value which was negligible.) Accepting as true that the Notice of Claim was filed on July 18, 2012, such a filing date would make it untimely even to challenge the 2012-2013 assessment. The July filing date would be untimely even if the court were to use March 1, the last date to file challenges administratively as the triggering date. The only way for the July 2012 Notice of Claim to be timely would be to use the May 10 cut-off date for non-residential assessment challengers as the date from which a Notice of Claim could be filed. Even in that case, the claim would only apply to 2012-2013. That being said, there is no basis to do that in law or fact to entertain claimant's cause of action as one for negligence.
In reality the claimant's complaint is that the defendant either did not send anyone to observe the property or sent someone and they failed to properly classify it as a street. In either situation, that allegation does not create a negligence claim. It gives rise to a cause of action pursuant to CPLR Article 78 which must be brought in Supreme Court.
As to claimant's allegation that the defendant has failed to comply with a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), the procedures for FOIL requests are set forth in Article 6 of the Public Officers Law. The statute sets forth the process to follow if a FOIL request is either denied or ignored. If the defendant has failed to respond during the time frame set forth in the statute, then claimant had to exhaust its administrative remedies as provided in Article 6. If the claimant has done so, then the relief is to commence an action within four months of the denial or failure to respond by commencing a proceeding in Supreme Court pursuant to Civil Practice and Law Article 78 [Public Officers Law §89(4)]. In any case, the small claims part of Civil Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a FOIL request dispute. Further, if the claimant is seeking to have the Civil Court order production of certain documents, such relief is equitable in nature and the Civil Court does not have jurisdiction to order such a remedy.
It should be noted that there is a "special proceeding for small claims assessment review" provided for in Article 7 Title 1-A of the RPTL. However, such an action must also be brought [*4]in the Supreme Court [RPTL§730]. Perhaps claimant was confused by this and thought it referred to the small claims part of Civil Court?
Defendant's motion to dismiss is granted. The Civil Court lacks the jurisdiction to grant the relief claimant is seeking. The fact is that the claimant had ample opportunity to challenge the classification and assessment as to this block and lot each year and failed to act. As it is now January 2014, claimant may want to consider filing a protest of the classification and following the procedure set by the Department of Finance to do so if it wishes to timely challenge either the assessment of classification of this block and lot.
The foregoing constitutes the decision and order of the court.
Dated: January 30, 2014
Staten Island, NYPHILIP S. STRANIERE
Judge, Civil Court
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