那个人得以得逞是因为旅馆没有派律师去应付上诉。

https://apnews.com/article/new-yorker-hotel-fraud-free-room-loophole-6505cb6df084002401aab9f6eaecf452

Barreto says he had just moved to New York from Los Angeles when his boyfriend told him about a loophole that allows occupants of single rooms in buildings constructed before 1969 to demand a six-month lease. Barreto claimed that because he’d paid for a night in the hotel, he counted as a tenant.

He asked for a lease and the hotel promptly kicked him out.

“So I went to court the next day. The judge denied. I appealed to the (state) Supreme Court and I won the appeal,” Barreto said, adding that at a crucial point in the case, lawyers for the building’s owners didn’t show up, allowing him to win by default.

The judge ordered the hotel to give Barreto a key. He said he lived there until July 2023 without paying any rent because the building’s owners never wanted to negotiate a lease with him, but they couldn’t kick him out.