Being taken to court can be a terrifying experience, especially when the stakes are as high as John and Maria Fuentes’. In late December, the Fuentes’ will go to Queens Housing Court to defend their right to stay in their Jamaica apartment. Their landlord, Zara Realty, filed an eviction case against them on the grounds that they unreasonably denied access into their apartment in order to perform repairs.

The only problem is: the Fuentes’ never denied the landlord’s staff access into their home.

“On the same day that Zara was writing up the court papers to send to the tenant, the workers were actually in Mr. Fuentes’ apartment doing the repairs that they claim were not done,” said Fuentes’ attorney Michael Leonard.

As frustrating as it may be for the tenant, Leonard tells them that in cases like this, the tenants are likely to come out on top. For the Fuentes,’ that offers little comfort now.

“At the end of the day we still have to miss a day of work or two. We still have to be present in court. We still have to have the anxiety of not knowing if we’re going to have this place to live in or not and find out what we’re going to do after,” Maria Fuentes said. “Why do we have to live this way?”

While the Fuentes’ have legal representation as of now, not all tenants are entitled to have an attorney; however, Leonard highly recommends it.

“We’re going to be prepping for a trial. We’re going to be crafting a narrative and spending time gathering documents to support our case. Those are things lawyers have time, training and expertise in,” Leonard said. “Eighty percent of the people who have lawyers representing them in Housing Court resolve their cases in their favor.”

In the near future, more tenants will have an attorney fighting for them. New York City passed the Right to Counsel Act in 2017. It entitles tenants whose family income is less than $50,000 to an attorney or legal counsel in eviction cases. The rollout is slow with a five-year integration period before all of those tenants are required to be provided counsel. This means many tenants facing evictions now are left to find their own attorney or face court alone.

Still, the effects are starting to be seen. “As more tenants in New York City are getting lawyers, we’re seeing that evictions are going down,” Leonard said.

Leonard fears as this new law becomes integrated and more tenants learn they are entitled to this, landlords will bring even more intense methods of intimidation outside of court to tenants they feel they could not use court to evict.

“It’s a lot cheaper to call up a tenant and say, ‘I’m going to call ICE on you’ or send a scary [termination] notice,” Leonard said. “It’s a lot cheaper to do that than it is to litigate a case for eight months where they have to hire a lawyer and pay a lawyer and all these things. My prediction is that as we see more procedures put in place to protect tenants in court, landlords are going to be resorting to out-of-court tactics, in order to displace poor and vulnerable people who reside in otherwise very lucrative, expensive apartments.”

According to tenant organizers from Catholic Migration Services in Queens, Zara resorts to these tactics frequently.

“I heard a lot about Zara’s practices in Queens. They have a certain reputation in Queens for treating tenants in a certain way,” said CMS attorney Thomas Power. “In my opinion, their practices are based very heavily in intimidation. Zara likes to maintain a sense of control over their tenants and oftentimes, tenants are sued for minor things.”

A Zara spokesperson declined to comment specifically on the subject of intimidation.  “In cases where tenants occupy regulated units, we stringently adhere to all laws and regulations,” said spokesperson Jason Fink. Although, Fink went on to claim that Zara properties have a lower turnover rate in rent regulated apartments than the citywide average, supporting data could not be verified.

Though tenants like the Fuentes’ feel that they are being harassed by the appearance of a termination notice, in reality it would take multiple court-ordered threats without reason to the same tenant in order for it to legally constitute as harassment. This type of intimidation is not illegal.

“The legal definition [of harassment] often doesn’t line up with how people feel,” Leonard said. “There’s always a gap between reality and the law, and that is a gap I think people are feeling in this situation.”

To qualify for harassment under the law takes a lot more. “Assuming we are able to beat this eviction, if the owner then comes back with two or three or four or five more lawsuits that are exactly the same and are devoid of any legal basis, then that is harassment,” Leonard said.

Power thinks that if Zara successfully evicts rent-stabilized tenants, then they can turn a profit by renovating the apartment and occupying it with higher rent paying tenant.

“They try to get these tenants out so they can revamp these apartments and sell them to different people who would pay more. I think that’s kind of the end game,” Power said. “If you can get past that [rent stabilized] threshold, then you’ve succeeded as a landlord.”

Leonard and Power agree the best way to fight back against landlords is outside of the courtroom. By mobilizing in groups, tenants can learn from one another’s experiences as well as bring awareness of the issues to lawmakers.

“I look at [John Fuentes’] case as something that if we can make this go away or if we can fight this case, John and people like John will be better situated to be leaders in their communities, in their buildings, [and] in fighting injustices that they see,” Leonard said. “So that’s what I hope to do is give some tenants a little bit more breathing room to do what they do best.”