High-Rent Tenant Claims Husband Primarily Resides Elsewhere

Landlord applied for high-rent/high-income deregulation of tenant's apartment. Tenant claimed that her annual household income was less than $175,000 during the prior two years. Tenant said her husband no longer primarily resided in the apartment, and therefore his income should not be included in the DHCR's calculation. The DRA ruled against landlord. Landlord appealed, claiming that tenant's husband lived full-time in the apartment. Landlord submitted a sworn statement from its managing agent and other documentation supporting this claim. The DHCR reopened the case. In prior years, the income of tenant's husband was included in the household income. Tenant's husband now filed his tax returns from another address, but this was not absolute proof of his primary residence. Landlord's managing agent claimed that he saw tenant's husband in the building every morning and that he lived there on a daily basis. The DRA must determine whether tenant's husband primarily resides in the apartment and, therefore, whether his income should have been included in the total household income for 2003 and 2004.

6465 Realty Co.: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. UF410025RO (11/3/06) [4-pg. doc.]