Daughter Didn't Live in Apartment with Tenant

(Decision submitted by William Neville, of the Manhattan law firm of Mitofsky, Shapiro, Neville & Hazen, LP, attorneys for the landlord.) Landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant for nonprimary residence. Tenant didn't appear in court, but her daughter did. The daughter claimed pass-on rights to the apartment. Landlord claimed that there were no real issues of fact and asked the court to rule without a trial. Landlord argued that tenant never vacated or surrendered the apartment, so she could not have passed the apartment on to her daughter. The court ruled for landlord. Tenant and her daughter admitted that tenant had moved to another subsidized apartment in May 2004. So the apartment clearly was no longer tenant's primary residence, and tenant was subject to eviction. Tenant's daughter claimed that once tenant moved out, she was entitled to pass-on rights. But tenant never notified landlord that she had moved out. Instead, tenant had pretended she still lived in the apartment. In 2005, she signed a renewal lease although she no longer lived in the apartment. Tenant also appeared in a 2007 nonpayment proceeding against her and signed a court stipulation agreeing to pay back rent owed. On May 24, 2007, she finally notified landlord by letter that she had moved out, but she never surrendered the keys. So, at the earliest, tenant surrendered possession in May 2007. Since she had moved out in May 2004, she couldn't claim that she and her daughter lived together in the apartment for at least two years before she vacated it.

Extell 609 West 137th Street LLC v. Santana: Index No. 95248/07 (10/27/08) (Civ. Ct. NY; Marton, J) [7-pg. doc.]