Hospital Employee Permitted to Stay in Apartment After Employment Ended Became Rent Stabilized

Tenant asked the DHCR to determine the rent-regulated status of her apartment. Tenant said landlord never gave her a lease but that she moved into the unit in September 2008 at a monthly rent of $800 under an agreement with her employer, Maimonides Medical Center (MMC). MMC was the building owner at that time, but later sold the building in 2018 and retained a Master Lease Agreement with the new owner in connection with employee-occupied units in the building. MMC stated that tenant's occupancy of the apartment was incidental to her employment with MMC and that she was never rent stabilized. Tenant claimed that her employment ended in 2011 when she retired. MMC claimed that tenant took a leave of absence in 2011, that her employment was terminated in 2014, and that MMC allowed her to remain in the unit on a month-to-month basis without a lease.

The DRA ruled for tenant, finding that the apartment was rent stabilized before MMC bought the building in 1987. Tenant's apartment became temporarily exempt from rent stabilization while MMC used it for employee housing. By allowing tenant to remain and pay rent after her employment ended, she became subject to rent stabilization.

MMC appealed and lost. Rent Stabilization Code Section 2520.11(f) permits temporary exemption from rent stabilization for apartments rented by a hospital to an affiliated employee. But once tenant was no longer an employee, she became "nonaffiliated," and therefore was subject to rent stabilization.

Maimonides Medical Center: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. HV210222RO (3/15/22)[4-pg. document]