Mamdanis housing-court fast-track for tenants ignores landlords 120,000 unpaid-rent cases: critics

City Hall’s latest lefty push to fast-track tenant repairs through housing court ignores landlords, who are forced to file up to 120,000 claims annually over unpaid rents and face yearslong eviction delays, critics say.The Mamdani administration last week announced a “Housing Court Fast Track” plan to accelerate its cases against building owners involving such issues as vacate orders, hazardous conditions and elevator outages, citing monthslong backlogs in the court system.But the fast-track directive only deals with one side of the equation, leaving landlords still grappling with tens of thousands of unpaid rent cases against their tenants — legal procedures that account for nearly 80% of all housing court proceedings in the five boroughs.“It’s almost like, you know, you’ve got an HOV lane for the tenants … and you’ve got the traffic backed up for miles for the owners,” said landlord lawyer Deborah Riegel of Rosenberg & Estis.  Valentina Gojcaj, a property manager at Onesource, said it’s all by design, noting democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s history of anti-landlord rhetoric.“I think that’s part of his agenda — I mean, he’s made it clear he doesn’t believe in private ownership,” Gojcaj told The Post.She cited one particular debacle for her employer in which a tenant installed an illegal washing machine in one of its Bronx apartment complexes that crashed through the ceiling into the apartment below, sending the unit’s downstairs neighbor to the emergency room. As of this month, that tenant owes approximately $30,000 in arrears and remains in her apartment with the illegal washing machine, Gojcaj claimed, despite multiple attempts to litigate the violations in housing court. The mayor’s newly minted fast-track plan ensures city-initiated claims involving repairs that landlords are required to make according to the Housing and Preservation Department will have a scheduled court appearance within five days or ...