A New York City court ruled that landlords don’t have a process under the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law to serve certain commercial tenants with the 14-day rent demands needed to begin repossessing a property. New York City Civil Court Judge Allison Greenfield made her finding while reviewing the rent demand that UNG 3 Realty LLC and 36 East 20th Street Realty Co. LLC issued to Passerine LLC, a restaurant in Tribeca opened by a Michelin-starred chef. Greenfield found that the landlords had incorrectly used the “more relaxed service methods” outlined in Section 735 of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, or RPAPL, to notify Passerine of the summary possession proceeding. That law allows for service on a “natural person,” “corporation, joint-stock or other unincorporated association”—but not for service on LLCs, Greenfield said. “This is not a surprising discovery, as RPAPL 735 was enacted in 1962 and last amended in 1980, and LLCs were not created by the New York State Legislature until 1994,” she said in a decision filed on Nov. 24. The failure to update the law to include LLCs is likely a legislative oversight, but “this Court is without power to remedy the oversights of the legislature… absent appellate authority, this Court can only call upon the legislature to review the issue and, if it deems appropriate, make a suitable amendment," Greenfield said. RPAPL governs summary proceedings for possession, with Section 735 stating that service can be made to the respondent or to someone who resides at or is employed by the subject property. After Passerine's landlords attempted to open a summary proceeding in April, the restaurant's attorney, Kevin Sean O’Donoghue, alleged several issues with the service, including with the method chosen. In court documents, O'Donoghue argued that “in New York, process cannot just be served on just any employee of a limited liability company… or just left at the door.” In her decision, Greenfield said she could only find one other decision that dealt with the issue of serving an LLC under RPAPL 735, a 2007 ruling from the Richmond County Civil Court that LLCs may be served under RPAPL 735. But Greenfield went the opposite way and sided with O’Donoghue, observing that landlords could instead serve an LLC through a member or manager, as provided in CPLR § 311-a, or through the Secretary of State, as provided in Article III of the Limited Liability Company Law. Those alternative measures, however, didn’t seem practical to Daniel Phillips, trial counsel at Belkin, Burden, Goldman. He pointed out that there were other deadlines for RPAPL proceedings that a landlord would have difficulties meeting if attempting service through the Department of State. And more significantly, Phillips said that neither of the alternative measures—service through the Department of State or through a member or manager—is the best way to notify a tenant of a proceeding. If you’re evicting someone occupying a space, the best way to notify them is to send the papers to the premises, Phillips said. “Suppose you have a deli that operates under an LLC. They may not have a member or manager of an LLC on site to service them,” Phillips said during a Wednesday interview with the New York Law Journal and Law.com. “It’s not really a practical alternative.” “I don’t think this decision will be followed unless it’s appealed and affirmed,” he said. The landlords in the case are represented by Jeffrey Klarsfeld of Platte Klarsfeld & Levine. Counsel for the landlords and Passerine didn’t respond to requests for comment.