Tenant Deregulated for Failing to Answer Landlord's Notice

Landlord applied for high-rent/high-income deregulation of tenant’s rent-stabilized apartment in 2014. The DRA ruled for landlord based on tenant’s failure to answer the notice of landlord’s application. Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant didn’t answer the DRA’s initial notice in 2015. Tenant did respond to the DRA’s second notice but stated that he didn’t have all of his tax documents needed to provide required income tax verification information. Tenant also didn’t submit a filled-in answer form or provide any tax verification information. The DRA later sent tenant a final notice, but tenant didn’t respond. While tenant claimed in his PAR that he didn’t receive timely tax documents from his accountant and therefore was unable to provide income verification information, tenant didn’t provide an explanation for his failure to respond to either the original notice of the final follow-up notice, or his failure to submit a completed answer form. This prevented the DHCR from verifying tenant’s income. Tenant also never stated whether his income was below the statutory deregulation threshold for the years in question.

Hollander: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. ES410047RT (12/9/16) [6-pg. doc.]