Daughter Gets Rent-Controlled Apartment

Tenant complained of a rent overcharge. She claimed that she had lived in the apartment since 1970 and was rent controlled. New landlord claimed that the apartment was registered as owner/employee occupied and demanded $1,350 per month as rent. Tenant had paid $500 per month. Landlord claimed that tenant's brother had moved into the apartment under a 1970 lease, but had bought the building in 1980. Tenant's brother then moved into another apartment in the building, while his mother and tenant remained in the subject apartment. Tenant's brother registered the apartment as owner-occupied, and tenant remained in the apartment after her mother died, refusing to pay market rent. The DRA ruled for tenant, finding that she had lived in the apartment since 1970, that her brother moved to another apartment in the building before he bought the building in 1986, and that tenant continued to live in the apartment with her mother after her brother transferred to the other apartment. The DRA set the maximum collectible rent at $500 per month based on the equities involved. Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord claimed that tenant's apartment was owner-occupancy decontrolled. But there was no proof that tenant's brother remained in the apartment after he bought the building and owner-occupancy decontrol was permitted for only one apartment in a building. Tenant proved that she lived with her mother in the apartment for many years before the mother died in 1992. Tenant had remained in the apartment since that time with no challenge to her tenancy until new landlord bought the building in 2005.

Chow: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. VE220011RO (5/22/12) [9-pg. doc.]