NEW YORK, May 23 (RAPSI) - The landlord of a resident of New York City’s famed Time Warner Center has filed a complaint with the Supreme Court for the State of New York seeking an order for renovations to be halted in a condominium reportedly belonging to Russian billionaire and former senator Vitaly Malkin.

While the court documents refer to the owner of the property simply as 22 CC SY74B LLC., a domestic limited liability company, local news source the New York Daily News reports that the condominium is owned by a trust belonging to Malkin’s family.

The complaint was filed by landlord AEH JAY Corp. Monday on the basis of complaints made by tenant Samuel Nappi, a wealthy energy and entertainment professional who rents the condominium directly beneath the one reportedly owned by Malkin for $43,000 per month.

According to Nappi’s affidavit, the noise endures each day from about 10 in the morning to four or five in the afternoon, with a lunch break worked in. He laments: “There is continual jack hammering, I believe, into the poured concrete floors above. The sound is painful and it is inescapable. We cannot sleep in the bedrooms or use the upstairs when the noise begins. We leave the upstairs and either go downstairs, or we leave the building. Other times, we simple [sic.] do not visit for fear of living in a noise hell.”

According to the complaint, Nappi’s regular oral and written complaints have failed to remedy the situation. He stopped paying rent in April 2013, but asserts in his affidavit his view that he was constructively evicted since the noise first began. As such, he intends to seek some or all of the rent he paid prior to April. The complaint notes that the landlord anticipates difficulty finding a new tenant in the case of Nappi’s departure, due to the noise issue.

The complaint seeks a declaration of nuisance, a permanent injunction requiring the defendant to stop being a nuisance, and damages both for indemnification and for breach of contract.

Izvestia reported in February that Malkin had filed a $600,000 suit against the company Katselnik & Katselnik which renovated the flat.

The $600,000 suit, filed on January 25 in New York State Supreme Court, states that Malkin hired the contractor to serve as his pre-construction manager, overseeing the initial demolition at the 3,200-square-foot duplex on the building's 74th and 75th floors.

The complaint alleges that the firm, seeking an opportunity to make money off a wealthy foreign investor who was unable to monitor the project, offered to become the general contractor on the renovation.

The conflict flared up in the summer of 2011, when K&K charged Malkin $170,000 for services which the complaint says were never authorized.
Malkin refused to pay, saying that K&K performed unauthorized work and overcharged him twice. The firm then put a $170,000 lien on Malkin's apartment, but offered a deal to make the lien 'go away' if Malkin granted K&K the lucrative renovation contract.

The Russian billionaire refused to give Izvestia further details on the nature of his complaint.

Last year Forbes assessed Malkin's private wealth at $600 million. According to his income declaration for 2011, he earned 1.01 billion rubles ($33.6 million). In 2012, Malkin was part of the delegation of the Russian parliament's Federation Council who went to the US to convince US Congressmen not to adopt the Magnitsky Act.