Shady landlords face $31 million payout over decades of neglect in Bronx building

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Two Bronx landlords — Rajmattie Persaud, building owner of Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers in Morrisania in the Bronx, and Karan Singh, an officer representing the building company — are being held accountable for decades of neglect in a $31 million class action lawsuit. Tenant organizers are hoping that this legal win will improve their living conditions.

The building topped the watchlist as the worst building in the Bronx in 2023, and Singh was on the top 25 worst landlords list in 2025. A total of 691 buildings that contain 15,739 units were on Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’s latest Top 100 Worst Landlords Watchlist. Last year, these buildings — including Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers — had several critically hazardous violations. “This is a long time coming,” said Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a press conference in the packed community room of the Bronx building on May 6, 2026. “For years, Singh and Persaud let more than 1,000 violations accumulate while they collected rent month after month. They have over-leveraged this building and Fordham Towers multiple times.”

Fed up tenants like Talibra Harrison, seeing no movement, started bypassing 311 complaint calls and writing letters to city agencies with their complaints. In 2024, they banded together with the Legal Aid Society to file a lawsuit with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD’s) Anti-Harassment Unit. In the lawsuit, tenants described going without hot water for days and using boiled water just to bathe. They also dealt with rampant rat infestations and broken elevators that made it difficult to navigate the 17-story building.

After two years, HPD has secured $31 million in penalties, the largest civil penalty won in HPD history, on behalf of the residents of these buildings.

“With an administration committed to housing justice, tenant support, and using all of the tools available to deliver, I’m invigorated by the change that we can create,” said Williams at the press conference. “With the resources of the city and the energy of tenants fed up with dangerous conditions and rising rents, we can overhaul not only buildings, but [also] the entire system that has created this housing crisis.”

Redlining runs deep

Robert Fulton Terrace first opened in 1967. The apartments were once advertised to middle-income families as “luxury you can afford” with amenities like a playground, communal spaces, reserved senior housing units, and reasonable monthly rents. The building was comparable to lauded Mitchell-Lama housing initiatives that provided stability and security for thousands of families at the time.

However, “ as the years wore on, the dream of luxury you can afford descended into a nightmare. The two buildings were sold to a series of speculators and soon fell into a pattern of disrepair and foreclosure. While irresponsible landlords lined their pockets, tenants in the buildings — nearly 500 units — paid the price,” said Mamdani.

Some tenant organizers and long-time residents were visibly crying with an outpouring of emotion at the press conference as they spoke about their experiences.

“I have lived through those violations and what they really meant, not as a list on a report but as an everyday challenge that affected my sense of safety, comfort, and dignity,” said Ahshaki Long, president of the Fordham Towers Tenants Association, who lived at 480 East 188th Street for 25 years. “We are struggling with broken elevators that make it difficult just to get home; rats and roaches that turn living spaces into sources of stress; old and failing appliances that are never replaced; persistent leaks that damage our homes; and mold that threatens our health.”

Long added that “on top of that, many of us have endured constant manipulation, harassment, and intimidation from Karan Singh and his management team. These experiences have made an already difficult living situation even more overwhelming, and now, after years of fighting, the city is finally fighting to get more responsible owners. I have felt the frustration, the uncertainty, [and] the moments where it seemed like nothing would change, but I have also witnessed something powerful rise out of that hardship: friendship, unity, resilience, and courage.”

Other tenants were angry about their prolonged living conditions, demanding to know when repairs would be made from the lawsuit money.

“During the wintertime, we got sick because we had no hot water, no heat. The stove didn’t work so we have to buy food out. That’s why a lot of us get backed up in our rent. We have to survive, too,” said one frustrated tenant to the mayor. “We are not animals. We’re human beings. What is directly going into our pockets?”

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, who was the councilmember for District 16 a decade ago, witnessed the decline of the buildings firsthand. She remembered struggling alongside the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), Our Bronx, the Legal Aid Society, and the tenant associations to make changes to the residents’ living conditions. She recalled years of responding to malfunctioning elevators, insufficient heat and hot water, vermin, mice and rats, multiple fires, and water damage and leaks for multi-generational Black and Brown families.

“It’s been years of neglect, folks,” Gibson said. “This did not happen yesterday, but it is a horrible pattern by a negligent landlord that does not prioritize tenants — hardworking families that pay their rent every single month and deserve more.”

HPD Commissioner Dina Levy, formerly a UHAB tenant organizer who worked with Gibson, added, “This is a story I know well. I organized tenants here back in 2009, when they were first coming out of Mitchell-Lama. Since then, tenants have been subject to decades of mistreatment, but that comes to an end today. Thanks to aggressive litigation by HPD’s Anti-Harassment Unit, we now have a record $31 million judgment against the owners. That gives us leverage in bankruptcy proceedings, which we’ll use to deliver better outcomes for residents.”

Councilmember Althea Stevens, who currently represents District 16, said the lawsuit was really “about sending a clear message to our community that we are not disposable and that housing is a human right for every single person. Most importantly, [for] landlords who choose to profit over being held accountable, that stops today.”

Fixing what was left broken

To start making immediate repairs, the city has designated an Independent Chief Restructuring Officer who is tasked with managing more than $900,000 seized from the landlords’ bank accounts toward fixes in nearly 500 apartments, according to the city. They have also hired a new property manager to ensure that repairs are actually made, said Mamdani.

Mamdani is also calling on the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which holds the mortgage on these buildings and has initiated foreclosure proceedings, to work with HPD and tenants to identify a preservation buyer.

“I’ve been very clear about our belief that we have to build more affordable housing in the city, but we also have to preserve the affordable housing that we have. This is a clear example of housing that’s been affordable enough for New Yorkers to be able to make a life in and the conditions have been uninhabitable,” Mamdani told the Amsterdam News.

“First, we have insisted that they direct the receiver to immediately start making urgent repairs across the buildings,” said Levy about the future of Robert Fulton Terrace. “Second, we have called on Fannie Mae to sell these buildings to a responsible preservation buyer with the endorsement of both the tenants and the city. Finally, we will expect Fannie Mae to recognize the cost to fully renovate Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers as part of any future sale.”

To go a step beyond that, State Senator Luis R. Sepúlveda is also advocating for passage of the Anti-Slumlord Act (S9332), which prohibits property owners with outstanding immediately hazardous housing violations from buying new properties. “It helps protect tenants and hold negligent landlords accountable,” said Sepúlveda in a statement. “No landlord is above the law, and no tenant should have to endure living in deplorable housing conditions. Housing is a fundamental right, and I will continue to fight, along with my colleagues at all levels of government, to ensure every New Yorker has access to safe, stable, and dignified housing.”

The timeline for disbursement of the $31 million settlement as a whole was unclear.