NO IDEA HOW TO HANDLE SITUATION - Tenant Negligence or Not?

[Kevin Nolan]

Backstory - I just recently bought a property in Westchester, NY and inherited a Section 8 tenant. She is an older lady on oxygen so I communicate with her daughter who seemed to be a very nice/sweet/polite woman at first. My initial idea was to give them notice as soon as I closed on the property but with NY state tenant friendly laws I decided to renew her lease even though Section 8 was only offering below market value.

So... Section 8 had an inspection done the first week of January 2021 on her unit which had PASSED (keep in mind) so I then had a lease drafted up and signed by the tenant. Within 2 minutes of her signing the lease, I received a text saying that the radiator wasn't working in the living room (which is in an open space with the kitchen, where there is another radiator). I immediately didn't think anything of it since I'm a new landlord and just had an HVAC guy go in to see what he could do. He went in and had to bleed the pipes to see what the issue was (this costed me $700). He then called me to tell me that he wasn't able to fix the problem and I had to call a plumber to check to see if there was a seized valve or something. I asked if it was an emergency since the tenant said it was "cold" in the apartment and he told me "absolutely not the entire unit is scalding hot I was dripping in sweat). So I decided to push it aside for the time being until the next day I recieved another call from the tenants daughter saying to tell her when the radiator will be fixed because the place was freezing cold. I went out to buy a space heater because the plumber that I called said he wouldn’t be able to make it over there for a couple days due to snow storms and being backed up. I then emailed the daughter to see if I could go into the apartment to get a better idea as to what was going on, but she never got back to me.

4 days later I get an email response back finally saying how she never saw the email and to contact her directly on the phone if she doesn’t get back because she doesn’t check her email. (I laughed at this because I feel like im babysitting at this point). But then 2 minutes later I received a threatening email from Section 8 saying “I have been aware of the heating issue and understand that you have been working the issue with no resolution. Please have the plumber repair and remedy the heat to an acceptable level of operation immediately or I will have no other choice but to trigger an emergency inspection with CVR. Please advise of your course of action you will be taking today to resolve.”

I respond back explaining all of this and how I have done everything in my power to get this fixed and been responsive but that I was waiting on the tenant to allow me access and respond to my email. So despite all of this I hire an emergency plumber to come in that same day who later tells me that the only problem was that there was a valve that was turned off next to the radiator in her living room. (this costed me $250).

This is where I’m looking for some assistance from all the BP friendly folks!

My questions to myself that I want to ask the tenant/section 8 are:

1. How is it possible that the radiator just suddenly happened to “break” moments after the lease was signed and submitted to section 8, when it clearly was turned off without knowing (or maybe intentionally knowing this woman…)??
2. How is it possible that in the previous inspection back in January, this was missed but it was just a valve shut off and I had to pay for it??

1. Do I have the right to put this back on Section 8/the tenant for this? I now incurred an additional $950 worth of expenses due to something that only SOMEONE could’ve controlled by turning the valve off in the first place.

I can't help but think this has to be negligence by both the tenant and section 8 considering they missed this in their inspection in the first place but now all of a sudden are demanding that I fix it?? Please please help because I’m brand new to this and feel like I have just been manipulated by these people.