Kushner Companies Owe $500,000 in Unpaid Fines

Fines from city agencies – primarily the departments of buildings and sanitation – are a perennial scourge for co-op and condo boards. They might want to consider following the Kushner Cos.’ approach to fines: ignore them! 

The city's perennial struggle to collect hundreds of millions of dollars in violations was brought back into focus in a Monday report by the Associated Press, which said the Kushner Cos. owe around $500,000 for building code violations, Crain’s reports. That's only the start. In total, the city was owed $1.5 billion as of last October, according to the latest report from the Department of Finance. That is roughly 6 percent lower than the 2016 figure. 

"I was hoping for a lot more," said City Councilman Ben Kallos, who sponsored a series of bills along with former Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland designed to improve collection rates. 

The city struggles to collect fines for several reasons. But in general, scofflaws have little incentive to cough up the cash. Most of the violations are issued by the city's Department of Buildings to landlords and developers who typically own property through limited-liability companies. Owners can typically continue to obtain permits for work from the city regardless of their balance, and the statute of limitations on the fines expires after eight years. 

A City Council report released in April predicted that the Department of Finance could rake in an additional $50 million this fiscal year if various agencies acted on one of the laws passed in 2016 that empowered officials to deny permits or licenses to repeat offenders. However, no agencies appear to have drafted rules to do so.