Flatlands Tenants Face 538 Open Violations Amid Ownership Fight

Tenants at a 38-unit walk-up at 1155 East 35th Street in Flatlands, Brooklyn say persistent maintenance failures have worsened while the property’s owner and lender fight over who is responsible for the building, according to Hoodline. City housing and property records confirm the outline of that standoff and show it has grown since the report was first published.

Why it matters

HPD’s violation file for the building, tracked under BBL 3076170017, now shows 538 open violations, split 171 Class C (“immediately hazardous”), 295 Class B (hazardous), 70 Class A and 2 Class I, higher than the 464 open hazardous violations municipal data reviewed by AptRight showed in records dated Sept. 17, per Hoodline. HPD’s registration file shows the building’s landlord registration, No. 303823, expired Sept. 1, 2025 and has not been renewed, meaning the annual filing that names a manager and emergency contact has lapsed for more than a year, spanning the period tenants describe losing on-site maintenance staff. ACRIS records show owner Midwood 35th Realty, LLC bought the property from East Thirty Fifth Street Bricks Inc. in a deed recorded Dec. 7, 2011 for $5.6 million, and financed it with a $2,944,778.06 mortgage from Kearny Bank recorded Oct. 15, 2018, the loan behind the foreclosure suit Hoodline reported Kearny Bank filed against landlord Yeshaya Wasserman in 2025. A court-appointed receiver then ran the building until Kearny Bank terminated the receivership in late August.

The numbers

HPD’s litigation file adds a paper trail tenants likely never see. Since March 2026, the department has opened four tenant-initiated cases against the building: a Tenant Action filed March 16, a Tenant Action/Harassment case filed June 5, another filed June 26, and a Tenant Action opened July 1. The March 16 filing names both “Midwood Realty 35 LLC” and “Waterstone Group” as respondents, the clearest record trace of a second entity operating alongside the owner during the dispute. None of the four 2026 cases shows a judgment yet. The building, assessed at $973,800 and built in 1928 per city property records, has also drawn 12 prior HPD litigation cases dating to 2009, including a 2022 New York Attorney General settlement, reported by Hoodline, requiring Wasserman’s SGW Properties to return $296,272 in withheld security deposits to 129 Brooklyn tenants.

What’s next

HPD’s violation file does not currently show a building-wide vacate order, so tenants remain in occupied units while the dispute over management continues. City Council Member Farah Louis has proposed the city buy the building through HPD’s preservation-buyer program, which funds acquisition and rehab of distressed rent-stabilized housing, and tenants have also asked a court to consider an Article 7A proceeding, which can strip a landlord of control and install an administrator to collect rents and order repairs. Neither step is confirmed in city records as of publication. This desk will track HPD’s files for a registration renewal, a certified repair closeout, or a new ACRIS filing tied to the foreclosure. The building sits inside the broader New York market’s aging multifamily stock, alongside a separate Brooklyn vacate order this week at 717 Avenue C in Kensington, where a fire displaced 24 households from a building carrying 113 open violations.