DHCR Won't Consider Succession Claim of Tenant's Son Raised for the First Time on Appeal

Rent-stabilized tenant Jose Raez filed a lease violation complaint with the DHCR in June 2020, claiming that he hadn't received a fully executed copy of the renewal lease that he received, signed, and returned to landlord in March 2020. In December 2020, tenant's son Xavier Raez filed a separate lease violation complaint for the same apartment, which the DRA consolidated with Jose's complaint. Landlord claimed that, although Jose was the tenant of record, Xavier now occupied the apartment and that landlord had started an eviction case against Xavier that was presently pending in housing court. The DRA terminated the combined RV complaints because Jose failed to dispute that he had moved out and there was a pending eviction proceeding.

Xavier, the son, appealed and lost. Among other things, Xavier claimed that he had lived with tenant in the apartment between August 1986 and November 2020 when Jose moved out, that he had succession rights, and that the eviction proceeding had been dismissed.  But the DHCR found that neither Jose, the tenant, nor his son Xavier had answered the DRA's request for additional information. So the DRA properly terminated the lease violation complaint, in which Xavier didn't claim succession rights and didn't produce any records to support his claim. Records produced for the first time on PAR won't be considered by the DHCR. The son provided no reasonable excuse for failing to set forth all of his claims and proof before the DRA. 

Raez: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. LU410022RT (12/12/23)[3-pg. document]