Landlords Seeking Owner Occupancy Didn't Offer Tenant Another Rent-Stabilized Unit

(Decision submitted by David Hershey-Webb, Esq. of the law firm of Himmelstein, McConnell, Gribben, Donoghue & Joseph, LLP, attorneys for the tenant.)

Landlords sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant for owner use of the apartment. Landlords' nonrenewal notice stated that landlords needed tenant's apartment to complete configuration of the entire building into a single-family home and then to live there as their primary residence. Since tenant was more than 62 years old, the notice also stated that landlords had offered to provide and would provide tenant with the equivalent or superior housing accommodations at the same or lower regulated rent in an area closely proximate to the building. Tenant claimed that landlords didn't offer her alternate housing accommodations, as required by Rent Stabilization Code Section 2524.4(a)(2). At trial, landlords showed that they offered tenant five other apartments in the area that landlord claimed were comparable to tenant's apartment. Tenant then asked the court to dismiss the case and argued that the apartments offered weren't comparable because they weren't rent stabilized. Landlords noted that they offered the alternative apartments at the same rent tenant was paying and agreed to limit rent increases to rates allowed under rent stabilization.

The court ruled for tenant. An appeals court had previously ruled in another case that a landlord and tenant can't subject an apartment to rent stabilization by private agreement. It wasn't simply a matter of what rent was charged. That, by itself, didn't make an apartment rent stabilized. A rent-stabilized apartment would give tenant other rights as a matter of law that didn't apply to the offered housing accommodations.

Arrojo and Finstad v. Serdula: Index No. L&T 77463/15 (Civ. Ct. NY; 12/14/17; Katz, J) [2-pg. doc.]