Leagem Partners v. Gallimore: How Landlords Can Use RPAPL § 713(10)

Virtual showings, self-service lockboxes, third-party leasing platforms they’ve changed the rental market in ways nobody really anticipated. And with that convenience came a new headache: applicants who treat a showing as move-in day.

That’s exactly what happened in Leagem Partners, LLC v. Gallimore, a Queens Housing Court decision from May 2021. The landlord’s applicant scheduled a self-showing, got lockbox access and moved her family into the apartment before her income was verified, before a lease was signed, before anyone said yes. In my experience, this is one of those situations where landlords feel completely stuck. The person isn’t a tenant, but they’re sitting in your unit with their furniture.

Here’s the thing that makes this case genuinely worth knowing about: the landlord’s attorneys at Rosenberg & Estis, P.C. reached into a statute almost always used by tenants against landlords RPAPL § 713(10), the so-called illegal lockout provision and flipped it entirely. Used it to get the occupants out. Fast.

This article walks you through what happened, why it worked and what it means for you as a property owner or manager operating in today’s leasing environment. The full decision is publicly available on Justia if you want to read the court’s own words.

Case Facts at a Glance

Leagem Partners owned an apartment at 119-20 Union Turnpike in Kew Gardens, Queens vacant since May 2020. They’d partnered with Rezi, a third-party leasing platform, to manage showings and applications digitally. Self-showings via lockbox. Convenient, efficient and as it turned out risky.

On April 1, 2021, Eva Gallimore applied through Rezi. Paid a deposit and first month’s rent. Listed three employers. Rezi started it’s due diligence and almost immediately ran into a problem: one of those employers couldn’t be verified. They requested pay stubs and bank statements. The application was explicitly still open.

April 6: Gallimore scheduled a self-showing. Keys from the lockbox, intended for viewing and measuring. April 8, roughly: she and her family moved in.

Rezi refunded her payments. Corporate counsel Keita deSouza and agents Jennifer Lora, Nicole Parker and Alyson Vivattanapa all testified they told Gallimore directly and in writing that she was not approved and could not occupy. No countersigned lease existed. Police were called when she refused to leave.

Gallimore’s defense was essentially: I paid, I thought I was in. An agent said it felt like “ours.” The court wasn’t persuaded. Emails and recordings told a different story. Judge Clifton A. Nembhard credited petitioner’s witnesses entirely and found she moved in knowing full well that approval was pending.

Legal Analysis & Key Holdings

No Landlord-Tenant Relationship Existed

The court’s first task was establishing what wasn’t present. Citing Stern v. Equitable Trust Co. of New York, 238 NY 267 (1924), Judge Nembhard held that a landlord-tenant relationship is always contractual express or implied and won’t be implied where the partie’s conduct negates it. No countersignature. No meeting of the minds. Tenancy expressly contingent on income verification that was never completed. No tenancy.

Invitor-Invitee, Not Tenant

What relationship did exist? The court called it invitor-invitee, drawing on Potter v. Furniture Mfrs. Bldg., Inc., 26 NY2d 269 (1970). Gallimore had permission to enter for a showing. That permission was revoked. Staying after explicit denial of approval that’s unlawful detainer. Simple, but powerful.

RPAPL § 713(10) Covers This Situation

This is where the creative lawyering comes in. RPAPL § 713 allows summary proceedings without a traditional landlord-tenant relationship. Subdivision (10) requires only that: (1) the petitioner was in actual or constructive possession before the intrusion and (2) the respondent entered or remains by force or unlawful means.

The court rejected outright any notion that the statute is limited to residential occupants or tenants. The owner was in constructive possession. The occupancy was unlawful. Statute satisfied.

Final judgment of possession granted. Warrant of eviction to issue forthwith.

Why RPAPL § 713(10) Worked Here

Three things came together in a way that made this approach viable and the absence of any one of them would have changed the outcome.

• First: no lease was ever countersigned. Leagem had documentary proof emails, recordings, refund confirmation that the application was conditional and explicitly denied. The moment a countersigned lease exists or even arguably exists, you’re in holdover territory and this strategy doesn’t work. The court in 88 Ave. Realty De LLC v. Castro (Civ. Ct., Queens 2022) made exactly that distinction: there, a lease did exist, so 713(10) was inapplicable.

• Second: constructive possession was clearly established. The apartment was vacant. Leagem hadn’t handed over keys in any sense suggesting approval. The lockbox access was explicitly for showing purposes only. The landlord had never relinquished possession so constructive possession was intact.

• Third: the OSC route was available and used aggressively. Rather than filing a standard petition and waiting in queue, counsel applied to the Appellate Term under CPLR 5704(b) after the Civil Court initially declined to sign. That’s a move most landlord’s counsel don’t think to make. It worked and the matter was heard in full on April 27, 2021 weeks, not months.

Practical Takeaways for Landlords

Documentation: Your First and Last Line of Defense

If there’s one thing Leagem teaches, it’s that paperwork wins cases. Every conditional piece of your approval process needs to be in writing.

• Send written confirmation every time that approval is pending income verification.
• Never let your agents use language like “it’s yours” or “you’re good to go” verbally or in writing until approval is final.
• Email the denial explicitly. Rezi’s refund of payments helped, but the emails and phone recordings sealed it.
• Keep logs of every communication: agent notes, portal activity, timestamps.

Lockbox Protocol Matters More Than You Think

Self-showing technology is great until someone uses viewing access as occupancy access. A few things worth implementing now:

1. Remove units from market listings during active due diligence or at minimum, flag them as ‘Application Under Review.’
2. Restrict lockbox codes to time-limited single-use access where technically possible.
3. Send a written reminder before any self-showing: access is for viewing only; occupancy without written approval is unauthorized and may result in immediate legal action.
4. Call the police early when someone refuses to vacate after a denied application not to make an arrest, but to create a documented record that removal was attempted.

Knowing When to Use 713(10) vs. Something Else

This statute is a scalpel, not a hammer. It fits a narrow situation:

• Applicant moved in before lease was signed or approved.
• Occupant has no tenancy claim at all not a former tenant, not a licensee with any formal arrangement.
• Landlord can establish constructive possession was intact before the intrusion.
• Strong written evidence of non-approval exists.

It does not fit when any lease arguably exists, when the occupant has been in possession long enough to establish a rental history argument or when ownership is contested.

Comparison Table of Eviction Options

Here’s how the main tools available to New York landlords compare when dealing with occupants who have no signed lease:

Factor	RPAPL § 713(10)	Holdover Proceeding	Ejectment (Supreme Ct.)
Best for	Non-tenants / squatters / applicants who moved in without a lease	Former tenants holding over after lease expiry	Complex ownership disputes
Notice required?	None — file by OSC	14–90 days depending on tenancy type	Formal pleadings; no set notice
Presumes tenancy?	No — that’s the point	Yes — requires landlord-tenant relationship	No
Pandemic moratorium risk?	Low — occupant not a tenant	High — moratoriums applied to tenants	Varies by court
Speed to warrant	Days to weeks (OSC route)	Weeks to months	Months to years
Key evidence needed	No lease; constructive possession; explicit denial of approval	Lease, notice, non-payment or holdover facts	Title, ownership records
Risk if tenancy found?	Proceeding dismissed; must refile as holdover	N/A	N/A

Note: This table is for general educational purposes. Specific facts change the analysis significantly. Always consult counsel before choosing a procedural vehicle.

Real-World Timeline: How Fast Can This Actually Move?

In Leagem, the entire contested proceeding from application to judgment ran roughly five weeks. That’s genuinely fast for Housing Court. Here’s roughly how the timeline broke down:

• April 1, 2021 — Eva Gallimore applies online through Rezi. Deposit and first month’s rent paid.
• April 6 — Self-showing scheduled. Lockbox access provided for viewing only.
• ~April 8 — Gallimore and family move in without authorization.
• Shortly after — Rezi refunds payments; Gallimore told explicitly she is not approved.
• April 2021 — Leagem files by Order to Show Cause. Civil Court initially declines to sign; counsel takes application to Appellate Term under CPLR 5704(b), which signs.
• April 27 — Full evidentiary hearing. Multiple Rezi agents, building management and Gallimores testify.
• May 7, 2021 — Decision issued. Final judgment for Leagem. Warrant of eviction to execute forthwith.

For comparison, a standard holdover proceeding in New York City even an uncontested one rarely concludes in under 60 days and contested matters routinely stretch past six months. The 713(10) OSC route here shaved months off that timeline.

Lessons from the Pandemic Era

It’s worth pausing on context. This happened in April–May 2021. New York’s eviction moratorium was in full effect. Landlords were essentially frozen out of the court system for anything that touched tenant status.

That’s precisely why the legal strategy here was so consequential. By invoking 713(10) and arguing the occupants were never tenants Rosenberg & Estis sidestepped the moratorium entirely. As attorney Michael Carr put it: “Probably every other case except for two or three is by a tenant whose landlord locked them out. But just because the statute is always used by tenants doesn’t mean there’s anything in the statute that says you have to be a tenant.”

That’s a lawyerly observation, but it cuts to something real: statutes don’t always work only in the direction everyone assumes. Creative counsel reads the text, not just the pattern of how it’s been used.

Post-pandemic, the legal landscape has shifted somewhat. New York’s 2024 amendments to RPAPL § 711 and the Penal Law introduced clearer definitions around squatters and strengthened owner remedies. But those amendments don’t undermine Leagem if anything, they complement it. The principle that an unapproved applicant has no tenancy rights is now even more firmly embedded in New York law.

Virtual showings haven’t gone away since 2021. Rezi-style platforms are still common. The lockbox abuse problem is still real. Leagem is still the most directly applicable precedent for handling it.

Conclusion & Action Steps

Leagem Partners v. Gallimore isn’t a complicated case on the merits. The facts were pretty clear: no lease, no approval, unauthorized occupancy. What makes it worth knowing about is the procedural creativity the willingness to use a statute against the grain of it’s typical application and to move by OSC rather than waiting in the regular queue.

In my experience, the landlords who handle these situations best are the ones who’ve already built the systems before anything goes wrong. By the time someone’s sitting in your unit without a lease, your options narrow fast. The documentation either exists or it doesn’t. The written denial was sent or it wasn’t.

A few things worth doing now, before any problem arises:

• Review your leasing platform contracts does your agreement with Rezi or a similar service clearly state that lockbox access is for viewing only and conveys no possessory rights?
• Update your showing confirmation emails to include explicit language that access is not authorization to occupy.
• Train your agents. No verbal or written language suggesting approval until final written authorization is issued by management.
• Build a documentation habit. Timestamps, emails, notes they become your evidence.
• Talk to your attorney about whether your jurisdiction has any local rules that affect the OSC route under CPLR 5704(b).

If you’re dealing with an applicant who’s already in a unit without a signed lease call counsel today. Don’t wait. The longer an unauthorized occupant is in possession, the more they can argue estoppel, partial tenancy or equitable claims. Speed is your advantage and Leagem shows what speed looks like when the legal strategy is right.