WILLIAMSBURG — A rent-stabilized Williamsburg tenant who has faced more than six eviction attempts in the last five years has been ordered by his landlord, the estranged wife of accused murderer Robert Durst, to get out once again — this time over the claim of a fraudulent lease.
Felipe Fernandez, 67, who's lived in a rent-stabilized apartment at 218 South Third St. since he was in his 20s, signed his mother's signature, then wrote his own initials on a lease renewal once she got sick with Alzheimer's Disease in the early 2000's — at the behest of his former landlord, he said.
Since she moved out, he's fought court case after court case, shelling out his life savings, more than $60,000 in legal fees, he said.
"As long as I have a penny left, that penny I'll use to defend this apartment," Fernandez, a retired school bus driver who pays just under $400 a month for his two-bedroom apartment, said in Spanish.
"I've lived here for around 40 years," he added. "The last penny I have, I'll spend it fighting them."
His lawyer has tried to get the landlord to cover attorney fees, but hasn't had any luck so far, according to Fernandez's daughter Cindy Fernandez, 33, the tenant association president who lives across the hall.
"It's frustrating because I can't help him," the younger Fernandez said. "[All I can do] is sit here and wait."
While Fernandez has whittled away at his savings, he's also dealing with sub-standard living conditions with no timeline for repairs at home.
He's had no water in his bathroom for nearly a month, no cooking gas or stove, and black mold growing along one of the bedroom walls, as previously reported by DNAinfo.
Fernandez' 41-unit apartment building was purchased in February of 2015 for $12.74 million by BCB Property Management, Robert Durst's estranged wife Debrah Lee Charatan's company, according to property records.
The company has been known to shut off basic services and avoid repairs in what rent-stabilized tenants say is an effort to frustrate them enough to leave, DNAinfo previously reported.
The former owner brought several eviction cases against Fernandez starting in 2010 when his mother moved out for health reasons.
BCB took over one case when they bought the building. That case was dropped, but BCB started a new case last year that was dropped on Feb. 23, according to Fernandez and court documents.
Now BCB has informed Fernandez they plan on starting a second case, according to a letter dated March 7 that Fernandez received this week.
An attorney at Wenig Saltiel LLP, defending BCB Property Management, declined to comment immediately on the case but said the landlord had valid grounds for eviction.
The attorney declined to comment any further on the case.
A representative of BCB Property Management was out of town and couldn't be reached immediately, according to a company secretary.
Meanwhile Fernandez has no interest in leaving the apartment he's called home since he was a young man.
"The building is theirs but the apartment is mine," he said. "Let them take me to court."
