Seller signed two year leases right before closing on the sale

[Colin Ghira]

I'm currently buying a property upstate NY. I entered into a contract in May 2018 and the close is next week. It's a 5 unit building where at the time of signing, 2 of the units were rented to long-term tenants (I think they had 1 year contracts), and 1 had the property manager that was living there for free, in exchange for services. As I'm getting the paperwork for closing I noticed 3 leases signed in June. Two leases for the long-term tenants were signed for 2 year terms and another lease with new tenants for 1 year terms. The problem is that the rentals are way below market and the landlord did this in order to protect their tenants (friends) I'm guessing. In addition, the contracts that they signed are one pagers and don't give any protections to the landlord. Now, I wouldn't have raised the rents for the first year for the current tenants, as a gesture of good faith, regardless. But this whole thing definitely put me in a bad mood. Both the previous landlord and the tenants have not acted ethically, I believe. My attorney is saying that the landlord hasn't done anything illegal. Does anyone have any experience with this type of issues and what do you think is a proper course of action here? 

[Russell Brazil]

Ideally you would have had a clause in your contract that allowed or did not allow tenant placement or lease extensions during the term of the contract. Without this, you are out of luck.