Lau, who has sat on the housing court bench in Manhattan since she was appointed in 1993, explained to the group that after she retires in December she is moving to Hawaii.

“I have a house on the North shore of O’ahu. I’m on 2 1/2 acres. Five bedrooms, two floors. It’s nice. I did want to say goodbye to all of you and this is a good way to do it.”

Lau said that she plans on passing the time in Hawaii as a farmer as she is already growing limes, lemons, pomegranates, and avocados on her land out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“We’ll be taking them to the farmer’s market and try to make some money off of it,” she said.

Two members of KCHCBA, Daniel Phillips and Scott Loffredo also had an opportunity to give a lecture on some of the hottest topics in landlord/tenant litigation at Thursday’s meeting. Phillips mostly covered recent developments when it comes to overcharges and Loffredo covered improper deregulation of stabilized apartments.

“I asked Scott and Dan to speak to us because there has been a line of cases that have been coming down in the last year or so that have shaken up a lot of our perceptions about how rent overcharges accrue or are calculated,” Rosenthal said.

“Overcharges are extremely important,” Phillips explained. “If you don’t handle these types of issues properly it can have devastating effects on your client. It can lead to a fair market apartment going back into stabilization, it can lead to the value of a building going down, it can lead to the rent going down. It can also lead to possible overcharge claims against your client. They are probably the most devastating things that could happen to an owner in a landlord tenant proceeding.”

KCHCBA meets every month on the first Thursday of the month in the basement of Rocco’s Tacos. The meetings are similar to other bar associations’ continuing legal education (CLE) meetings, however, KCHCBA meetings don’t offer CLE credit and are more informal. Typically, a judge gives a brief presentation at every meeting and members discuss the latest changes to the court.

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