Tenant Deregulated After Default in Deregulation Proceeding

Landlord applied for high-rent/high-income deregulation of tenant’s rent-stabilized apartment in 2010. Tenant claimed that she hadn’t filed N.Y. State income tax returns for 2008 and 2009 due to financial hardship. She also stated that her brother, an apartment occupant, had filed his returns for those years. The DRA later sent four separate notices to tenant that her answer was incomplete and that failure to provide specified income verification information could result in a deregulation ruling. The DRA then ruled against tenant based on her default.

Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant never submitted any proof that she had filed, or the state approved an extension to file, income tax returns, or any mailing labels or first pages of the requested returns for 2008 and 2009. The fact that tenant may not have filed the returns didn’t prevent her from responding to the DRA’s notices and advising of the status of her tax return filings. Tenant’s failure to respond also prevented the DRA from verifying her income with DTF. Tenant’s brother also now claimed that he was the successor tenant and hadn’t received some of the DRA’s notices. But no one made this claim to the DRA, and tenant had signed all renewal leases to date, as well as the initial response to the DRA in this proceeding.

Sheinin: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. CO410003RT (7/22/15) [10-pg. doc.]