Bianca Jagger has been evicted from her rent-stabilized Park Avenue apartment after several years of quarreling with her landlord over claims of toxic mold and questions about her residency, her lawyer said. After a recent appeals court ruling against her, Jagger knew the eviction was coming. She found out from a neighbor’s phone call that a sheriff had arrived Wednesday to move her possessions to storage, lawyer Daniel Bryson said.
“This is an absolute travesty,” he said.
A lawyer for landlord Katz Park Avenue Corp. didn’t immediately return a telephone call early Thursday.
Lawyers for the 62-year-old Jagger, who was married to rocker Mick Jagger, have maintained that Katz evicted her as payback. She sued the landlord in 2003, claiming mold had made her sick and the apartment unlivable.
But Katz argued that the 18th-floor apartment couldn’t be Jagger’s primary residence – a requirement for occupying a rent-stabilized unit – since she was in the U.S. on a tourist visa that required her to show that she intended to leave after a temporary stay. The state Supreme Court’s Appellate Division agreed in October, noting that Jagger, who is a British citizen, keeps at least one luxury apartment in London.
The actress-turned-activist has been a tenant in the Upper East Side apartment for 20 years. Under the complex rent regulation laws, evicting her may allow the landlord to raise the $4,600-a-month rent substantially.