Schenectady City Court orders landlord to pay $665,500 in fines for multiple code violations

The city of Schenectady claims a landlord hasn’t been maintaining his properties.

Schenectady City Court has found Ahmad Halim guilty of multiple property code violations. He has been ordered to pay $665,500. Now Halim is speaking out.

Halim is the general manager of Al Haqq, LLC. His company is based in Maryland. The city of Schenectady says he owns 13 properties, where eight are facing code violations.

Many of the properties had things like cracked windows, cracked sidings and even chipped paint.

Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy says absent landlords create a safety concern for neighbors. However, Halim claims he has been responsible and claims the mayor hasn’t been willing to work with him.

“His properties are not maintained. We have gone through a prolonged court process with this. It has resulted in substantial judgments against him,” said McCarthy.

“I am coming to see what the problem is. We can work together to make sure if there is a violation we will be more than happy to correct it, and he says, ‘No, no we are not interested in that,'” said Halim.

McCarthy is hoping the city will be able to collect the money from Halim.