One couple found a way to make Manhattan affordable: not paying rent on their Chelsea loft for six years.

Digital content producers Zachary Bennett and Karen Nourse quit paying the $4,754.02 monthly rent on their West 26th Street place back in 2010, according to a lawsuit.
They owe $410,000 in rent and electric charges, their landlord claims.
Theirs is the only residential loft in the nine story building, where other units house art galleries or businesses.
The couple were month-to-month tenants before June 2010, when the state expanded the Loft Law, which is intended to protect people whose apartments are in mostly commercial or industrial buildings.
Bennett and Nourse, who have two children and run a video content company called KZ Films, claim they don’t have to pay rent because the building doesn’t have a residential certificate of occupancy, according to court papers.
“This building does not comply with the Loft Law,” said their lawyer, Margaret Sandercock. “The owner is not entitled to collect rent and my clients are not required to pay rent.”
It has been 80 months since the two paid rent or electric charges, the landlord — 513 West 26th Realty LLC — said in its Manhattan Supreme Court filing against the couple.
The Loft Law applies to buildings with at least three residential tenants — but Bennett and Nourse are in the building’s only non-commercial unit, said Harry Shapiro, the landlord’s lawyer.
http://nypost.com/2017/01/08/couple-...nt-since-2010/

Digital content producers Zachary Bennett and Karen Nourse quit paying the $4,754.02 monthly rent on their West 26th Street place back in 2010, according to a lawsuit.
They owe $410,000 in rent and electric charges, their landlord claims.
Theirs is the only residential loft in the nine story building, where other units house art galleries or businesses.
The couple were month-to-month tenants before June 2010, when the state expanded the Loft Law, which is intended to protect people whose apartments are in mostly commercial or industrial buildings.
Bennett and Nourse, who have two children and run a video content company called KZ Films, claim they don’t have to pay rent because the building doesn’t have a residential certificate of occupancy, according to court papers.
“This building does not comply with the Loft Law,” said their lawyer, Margaret Sandercock. “The owner is not entitled to collect rent and my clients are not required to pay rent.”
It has been 80 months since the two paid rent or electric charges, the landlord — 513 West 26th Realty LLC — said in its Manhattan Supreme Court filing against the couple.
The Loft Law applies to buildings with at least three residential tenants — but Bennett and Nourse are in the building’s only non-commercial unit, said Harry Shapiro, the landlord’s lawyer.
http://nypost.com/2017/01/08/couple-...nt-since-2010/
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