Mitchell-Lama Tenants' Son Gets Apartment

The DHCR denied a son's appeal from landlord limited-profit housing company's rejection of his application for succession rights to tenants' Mitchell-Lama apartment. The son filed an Article 78 court appeal for review of the DHCR's decision. The court ruled for the son, and the DHCR appealed. The appeals court ruled against the DHCR. The DHCR then asked New York's highest court for permission to appeal further. The court allowed the DHCR to appeal, but ultimately ruled against the agency. The DHCR acted arbitrarily and capriciously in denying the son's appeal. The son had lived in the apartment with tenants, who were his parents, all his life. The DHCR's denial of his succession application was based on the failure of the son's mother to file, during the year before son's high school graduation, an annual income affidavit listing the son as a co-occupant. Evidence that the apartment was the son's primary residence in the two years before tenants vacated the apartment was overwhelming and there was no indication that the mother's failure to file was related to the son's status as a co-occupant or income earner. In the context of succession, the principal purpose of the income affidavit is to provide proof of the applicant's primary residence, which was not questioned in this case.

Murphy v. DHCR: 2013 NY Slip Op 06727, 2013 WL 5637985 (Ct. App.; 10/17/13; Lippman, CJ, Graffeo, Smith, Rivera, Read [dissenting], Pigott [dissenting], Abdus-Salaam [dissenting], JJ)