Appeal from a decision of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Kings County (Loren Baily-Schiffman, J.), dated September 29, 2006, deemed from the final judgment entered thereon on December 20, 2006 (see CPLR 5520 [c]). The final judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded landlord possession in a commercial holdover summary proceeding.

Final judgment affirmed without costs.

In this commercial holdover summary proceeding based on the termination of an oral month-to-month tenancy, tenants asserted as a defense that, subsequent to the commencement of the proceeding, tenant Paul Patterson paid landlord Salvatore Mirra $100,000 with the understanding that landlord would give Mr. Patterson a written lease upon such payment. Although landlord acknowledged receipt of the $100,000, both he and his witnesses testified that said amount was owed to him pursuant to a "profit sharing" agreement with Mr. Patterson. Following the nonjury trial, the court found that the testimony of landlord and his witnesses on this issue was credible. The court also ruled that, notwithstanding a typographical error on the deed with respect to the address of the premises, landlord had made out a prima facie case that he was both the landlord and the lessor of the premises and that the appropriate predicate notice had [*2]been served. Accordingly, the court granted landlord a final judgment of possession. We affirm.

RPAPL 721 (1) provides that a summary proceeding may be maintained by the "landlord or lessor." As it is undisputed that Mr. Mirra is tenants' lessor, he has standing to maintain this proceeding (see 100 Apt. Assoc., Inc. v Estavillo, 18 Misc 3d 67 [App Term, 9th & 10th Jud Dists 2007]).

Even were we to credit tenants' claim that landlord agreed to give them a lease and that their payment of $100,000 was in furtherance of such an agreement, their claim does not amount to a defense to this holdover proceeding. In order to be binding, an agreement for a lease must be certain as to the terms of the future lease (see Dolan, Rasch's Landlord and Tenant — Summary Proceedings § 3:6, at 156 [4th ed]). Here, tenants neither alleged nor proved that there was an agreement as to the specific terms of the purported future lease. Thus, even assuming that the existence of an agreement for a lease might constitute an equitable defense to a holdover proceeding, tenants failed to establish the existence of such an agreement. Moreover, in view of such failure, any error by the court in failing to allow tenants to call as a witness landlord's counsel merely to corroborate tenants' allegations with respect to the agreement is without consequence.

Finally, contrary to the contentions of tenants, the trial court's intervention during the questioning of witnesses was not indicative of any bias or partiality of the court. A "trial court has broad authority to control the courtroom, rule on the admission of evidence, elicit and clarify testimony, expedite the proceedings and to admonish counsel and witnesses when necessary" (Campbell v Rogers & Wells, 218 AD2d 576, 579 [1995]). A review of the record reveals that the trial court's involvement in the questioning of the witnesses did not interfere with tenants' presentation of their
evidence or the cross-examination of witnesses, nor did the court display any bias or prejudice for or against any party (see Pallotta v West Bend Co., 166 AD2d 637 [1990]). Accordingly, we affirm the final judgment.

Weston Patterson, J.P., Golia and Rios, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: April 30, 2008