Landlord Accidentally Accepted Rent After Lease Termination

Landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant for nonprimary residence. Landlord sent a lease nonrenewal/termination notice to tenant on Jan. 5, 2010, stating that the lease wouldn’t be renewed after April 30, 2010. Tenant didn’t move out but sent unsolicited rent checks to landlord on May 1, 2010, and June 1, 2010. Landlord’s managing agent deposited the checks. Landlord then started the eviction case. Tenant asked the court to dismiss the case because landlord had accepted the May and June rent checks. Landlord’s managing agent said that it accepted the checks in error because it believed they represented use and occupancy charges. The court ruled for tenant and dismissed the case. Landlord appealed and lost.

Landlord then appealed to a higher court and won. Under the Rent Stabilization Law, landlord’s acceptance of unsolicited rent after the expiration of a lease doesn’t, by itself, amount to a voluntary waiver of the right to contest tenant’s nonprimary residence. A waiver can’t be created by negligence, oversight, or thoughtlessness. Here landlord didn’t solicit the rent payments after April 30, 2010, or otherwise give tenant the impression that it had reinstated her tenancy after serving the termination notice. The case was reinstated, and landlord could conduct pretrial questioning. Landlord claimed that tenant primarily resided in Florida.

Georgetown Unsold Shares LLC v. Ledet: 2015 NY Slip Op 05185, 2015 WL 3756873 (App. Div. 2 Dept.; 6/17/15; Dillon, JP, Balkin, Chambers, Cohen, JJ)