Pre-Trial Questioning Permitted to Determine Whether Apartment Was Properly Deregulated

Landlord sued to evict tenant, claiming that apartment was exempt from rent stabilization based on high-rent vacancy. The court denied landlord's request for a ruling without a trial, and granted tenant's request for pretrial questioning.

Landlord appealed and lost. There was a genuine question of fact that required a trial on whether the apartment was exempt from rent stabilization. Landlord claimed that the apartment became exempt before June 24, 2011. But there was no proof of the rent history between August 2010, when landlord last registered the rent of a purportedly rent-stabilized tenant at $1,796, and June 2014, when the complaining tenant moved in. Landlord needed to establish that the apartment was or became vacant on or before June 23, 2011, when the deregulation threshold was $2,000, rather than after June 24, 2011, when the threshold was $2,500. And, although tenant signed a settlement agreement in a prior nonpayment proceeding stating that the apartment was a "replacement apartment" and was "not regulated," the protection of the Rent Stabilization Law and Code can't be waived if the replacement apartment at issue is determined to be covered by rent regulation.

As to tenant's request for pretrial questioning, tenant showed ample need for limited discovery given the 69 percent increase in rent following a vacancy and the gaps in the rental history. And consideration of events beyond the four-year statute of limitations for rent overcharge was permissible if done not for the purpose of calculating a rent overcharge but instead to determine whether an apartment was regulated.

Mautner-Glick Corp. v. Higgins: Index No. 570030/19, 2019 NY Slip Op 29129 (App. T. 1 Dept.; 5/3/19; Ling-Cohan, JP, Gonzalez, Cooper, JJ)