Landlords appeal from an order of the Civil Court, New York County, entered September 23, 2004 (Ulysses B. Leverett, J.) which granted tenant Noriaki Niikura's post-trial motion for attorneys' fees and directed a hearing to determine the reasonable value of the attorneys' fees recoverable by tenant in an owner occupancy holdover proceeding.

PER CURIAM:

Order entered September 23, 2004 (Ulysses B. Leverett, J.) affirmed, with $10 costs. [*2]

Civil Court properly granted tenant's post-trial motion for attorneys' fees based upon his successful defense of the underlying owner occupancy proceeding. The parties' initial 1988 rent stabilized lease agreement contained a clear and unambiguous attorneys' fee provision at paragraph 27, and was properly considered by the court even though the complete version of the lease agreement was first submitted by tenant in his reply papers below. The omission of the document from the original moving papers was adequately explained by tenant's counsel in his reply affidavit and was not shown to have caused landlords any discernible prejudice (see Home Ins. Co. v Leprino Foods Co., 7 AD3d 471 [2004]; NYCTL 1996-1 Trust v Railroad Maintenance Corp., 266 AD2d 39 [1999], lv dismissed 94 NY2d 899 [2000]). Moreover, landlords are now estopped from denying the existence or enforceability of the initial 1988 lease, having themselves relied upon that lease in seeking attorneys' fees in a prior phase of the litigation (see Nestor v Britt, 270 AD2d 192
[2000]).

This constitutes the decision and order of the court.
Decision Date: October 03, 2005