Tenant Lived in Neighbor's Apartment in the Same Building
LVT Number: #25838
Landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant for nonprimary residence. Landlord claimed that tenant lived in the same building, but with another tenant in a different apartment, and that she spent less than 183 days per year in her own apartment. Tenant claimed that she stayed away from her own apartment due to severe agoraphobia and that landlord should be required make a reasonable accommodation for her disability.
The court ruled for landlord after a trial. Tenant started spending time in the other apartment in 2002, moved into the other apartment completely in 2005, and used her own apartment only for storage. Landlord produced videotape evidence showing that tenant entered her own apartment only one time during a one-year period between 2009 and 2010 before the case was commenced. Tenant had become unable to work and started collecting disability in 1996. She rarely left the other tenant’s apartment after she moved in. Anything she needed for living purposes she had delivered to her at the other tenant’s apartment. In 2012, after landlord started the housing court case, tenant moved back into her own apartment and never returned to the other apartment. Between 2007 and 2013 there was almost no electrical usage at tenant’s apartment. A psychiatrist that tenant consulted by phone once a month for a while said that tenant moved out of her apartment because she wanted to be with the other tenant. This contradicted tenant’s claim that she was forced to move out of her unit because of a conflict with landlord’s contractor and as a result of her illness. Plus, tenant had received no treatment since 2007. An independent court-ordered medical examination also found no medical reason for tenant’s decision to move in with the other tenant.
The court found that tenant had moved into the other apartment because she wanted to be with the other tenant, not because of any medical condition.
Fifth Avenue LLC v. Wertheimer: 45 Misc.3d 1206(A), 2014 NY Slip Op 51469(U) (Civ. Ct. NY; 10/7/14; Kraus, J)