Did Tenants Know Their Rights When They Relocated to Unregulated Apartment?

In 2007, rent-stabilized tenants, who were husband and wife, relocated from their apartment to another unit in the building at the prior landlord's request. The new apartment was unregulated, and tenants received $4,300 and a preferential lifetime monthly rent of $541 per month. Tenants' son moved into the new apartment with them later in 2007. In 2014, tenant wife died. Tenant husband and the son signed a joint two-year extension lease with new landlord. In March 2016, the tenants requested a renewal lease from landlord but didn't receive one. The son continued to request a renewal lease after tenant husband died in 2016. The son then filed a complaint with the DHCR based on landlord's failure to renew a rent-stabilized lease. The DHCR ruled against the son, finding that the apartment wasn't rent regulated and that the tenants had voluntarily vacated their prior rent-stabilized apartment.

The son then filed an Article 78 court appeal, claiming that the DHCR's decision was arbitrary and unreasonable. The court sent the case back to the DHCR, finding that the DHCR was required to conduct a factual inquiry into the circumstances of the tenant-parents' surrender of the rent-stabilized apartment. On remand, the DHCR then ruled that the parents' waiver of their rights under rent stabilization was void based on the lack of proof that the agreement was part of a settlement, the fact that they weren't represented by an attorney, and the fact that the agreement wasn't approved by the DHCR or a court.

Landlord then filed an Article 78 court appeal of the DHCR's amended decision. The court sent the case back to the DHCR for a second time. Contrary to the court's prior order, the DHCR did no additional fact-finding when the court sent the case back the first time. The DHCR must conduct further fact investigation of whether the tenant-parents were sufficiently advised of the rights they gave up in their agreement with prior landlord. 

559 W. 156 BCR LLC v. DHCR: Index No. 153232/2023, 2024 NY Slip Op 30083(U)