In New York, a subtenant in a rent-stabilized apartment can sue the prime tenant to recover overcharged rent. They can also report the prime tenant to the landlord, who will probably evict them. The subtenant can even take over the lease in some cases.
Take from someone whose been on the landlord side. It’s not worth the trouble of going through a lawsuit and trying to collect damages. The lawsuit is the easy part. Collecting is the hard part.
It sounds like you're talking about collecting from delinquent tenants. They can be hard to track down and rarely have the money.
I'm talking about a subtenant retaliating against a prime tenant who kicked them out. Getting the prime tenant evicted is easy. On average, they're easier to find and collect from. Suing to take over the lease is hard, but collecting from the landlord is easy.
