Rent-Controlled Tenants' Daughter Gets Succession Rights After Tenants Switch Apartments

The daughter of rent-controlled tenants complained to the DHCR that landlord refused to offer her a rent-stabilized renewal lease after her parents died and the  prior lease expired on June 30, 2016. Tenant said that her parents moved from a rent-controlled unit into their current apartment in October 2007 pursuant to an agreement and an initial rent-stabilized lease. She in turn had lived in the apartment with her father for a year before he died. The daughter was disabled and claimed succession rights to the apartment. Landlord claimed that no succession rights applied. Landlord gave the parents $4,300 and a guaranteed monthly rent of $541 for their entire tenancy when they moved from their rent-controlled unit to their new apartment in 2007. The DRA terminated the proceeding, finding that the apartment wasn't subject to rent stabilization and that the parents voluntarily vacated their prior rent-controlled unit in 2007 and hadn't retained their rent-controlled status in the new apartment.

The daughter appealed and lost, then filed an Article 78 court appeal. The court sent the case back to the DHCR for further consideration. The DHCR then ruled for the daughter, finding that the parents' waiver of their rights under rent control was void because the agreement to move wasn't part of a settlement, they weren't represented by counsel, the agreement wasn't approved by the DHCR or a court, and it wasn't wholly voluntary, was made at landlord's request, and was made to landlord's benefit. The DHCR also found that tenant's daughter had succession rights. 

Landlord then filed an Article 78 court appeal, and the court sent the case back to the DHCR for further consideration. The DHCR found that the parent tenants weren't sufficiently advised of and didn't understand the rights they were relinquishing when they agreed to switch apartments. Rent Control Regulation 2200.15 required a negotiated settlement with the DHCR or court approval or representation by counsel in order to uphold such an agreement. The DHCR upheld the daughter's succession rights.

Martinez: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. MM410011RP (6/20/24)[7-pg. document]