TONG v. GRANAT (2025)

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Louis L. Nock, J.), entered October 6, 2023, in favor of defendants tenants and against plaintiff landlord in the amount of $18,280, and adjudging the complaint dismissed, unanimously affirmed, without costs.  Appeal from order, same court and Justice, entered May 23, 2023, which granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint, denied plaintiff's cross-motion for summary judgment, and set a hearing to determine attorneys’ fees, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as subsumed in the appeal from the judgment.

Supreme Court properly dismissed the complaint and awarded judgment to defendants.  Although an April 23, 2020 email from defendant Jeffrey Granat to plaintiff stated, “We are opting to renew our apartment lease from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021,” that email did not trigger a renewal of the parties’ lease.  The lease did not give defendants an irrevocable option to renew, but rather, gave plaintiff the option to renew the lease upon reimbursement of a broker's fee to defendants.  Thus, Granat's April 23, 2020 email could not by itself renew the lease.  Furthermore, at the time of the April 23, 2020 email, plaintiff had not offered or accepted renewal of the lease.  Therefore, the offer and acceptance required for the formation of a contract had not occurred (see Kowalchuk v. Stroup, 61 A.D.3d 118, 122, 873 N.Y.S.2d 43 [1st Dept. 2009]).

The court also properly rejected plaintiff's attempt to seek compensation for alleged damages to the apartment.  The complaint did not contain statements sufficiently particular to give the court and defendants notice that he would make that claim (CPLR 3013;  see Colleran v. Rockman, 232 A.D.2d 322, 323, 648 N.Y.S.2d 576 [1st Dept. 1996]).

We have considered plaintiff's remaining contentions, including his request for sanctions, and find them unavailing.