The French chef mysteriously passed away last month after he and his wife locked up more than $200,000 to open their dream restaurant in New York City. And now, “Heartless” New York City landlords refuse to refund family life savings.
François Zugai Olivon and his wife Manon Olivon had planned to move with young French children to open Chez Fanfan in the trendy SoHo district.
That was after selling a restaurant in Sainbriec, Brittany last year.
The couple spoke to Manon Olivon with deposits of over $166,000 and more than $47,500 in rent for two months in January and February to Robert Moskowitz, owner of New York-based Only Properties LLC.
However, before they opened the brasserie at 510 Bloom Avenue, François Thugai disappeared while on a holiday in southern France, local media reports said after a desperate call to his wife on February 22nd.
“He was screaming for me for help and I would like to take him away soon,” said Manon, media reports.
Manon never spoke to her husband again.
Passersby later reported that he met him the night he disappeared wearing a “completely torn” T-shirt. CCTV captured him as he fell off a bridge in the town of Bayonne. His body was caught from a river 12 days later.
The heartbroken widow told Moskowitz of the tragedy in a letter on March 1st, and asked her to at least return some of her life savings.
“Today, I am not writing letters to landlords. I am writing letters to men. I hope that we can look beyond clauses and people and understand that sometimes life places us through unimaginable trials that we cannot face alone,” she writes.
“If I can't pay the full amount, I ask them to pay the rent for at least a month. That would be a great help to me and my kids.”
However, Moskowitz refused to return the cash. Instead, only property lawyers play hardball and threaten to hold penniless widows accountable for the entire lease of 10 years.
“Refusal to sign a surrender agreement will not return the deposit, but you will be fully liable for all obligations stated in the parties' lease agreement,” only the property wrote in a letter to Manon on March 3.
Manon was to sign a surrender agreement.
“I have nothing,” Manon emailed. “We had been selling it to New York a while ago to move, so we don't have a house anymore. I don't have a car anymore either. My husband and I sold a restaurant in Brittany, so I'm not working anymore.”
She started gofundme A campaign to support her expenses. As of Wednesday, it had raised just $550.
Moskowitz declined to comment through his lawyer.
“This scenario is very unusual,” said Jeff Margolis, a restaurant leasing lawyer in New York, adding that Soho is a hot real estate market that isn't difficult to attract alternative tenants.
“There are a lot of landlords who want to be kind.
The landlord may have added, “We're going to keep this money, but let's quickly find another tenant and see if they'll return some of the deposit.”
Experts pointed out that Moskowitz did nothing illegal in maintaining deposits and rent payments.
Still, other contractors working with Olivons to open Chez Fanfan said they allowed their fees after they learned about the tragedy.
“I have waived legal fees,” liquor license lawyer Max Bookman told the post, adding that he “will not collect money from the widow whom my husband just died.”
“I live a real nightmare,” Manon wrote in an email. “Additionally, it creates a terrible weight of a heartless landowner who doesn't care much about my situation or my pain and doesn't want to return me even a penny of my deposit, who is insensitive and incomprehensible.”
Last year, Moskowitz made the headline that his tenants (strong couples) were inappropriately listed as photography business and earned tax amortization, which he ousted the couple in a fashionable, rent-stable loft he owns at 177 Hudson Street.
The city's rent stabilization law requires that apartments be the tenant's primary residence.
“We should anger all taxpayers that such a lucky couple tried to benefit from rent-stabilized apartments rather than simply using it as a major home as the law required,” Moskowitz told the Post last year. “Stable rents weren't enough for them, so they helped to inadequate the corporate tax credit,” he added.
