Tenant's Failure to Answer Deregulation Application Excused Due to Health Problems

Landlord applied for high-rent/high-income deregulation of tenants’ rent-stabilized apartment in 2014. The DRA ruled for landlord because tenants’ legal rent was $2,500 per month or more and because tenants failed to verify that their annual income was less than $200,000 in 2012 and 2013. Tenants appealed, and the case was reopened. Tenants, a husband and wife, claimed that the husband was over 70 years old, suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and heart disease, and had recently undergone heart surgery. Tenants also claimed that they never received the DRA’s two notices concerning landlord’s 2014 application, although they had answered four prior years’ applications. Tenants also that claimed their income was well under $200,000. Despite landlord’s objections, the DHCR found that tenant’s documented health problems excused his default and that tenants should be permitted to respond to the deregulation application when it was sent back to the DRA.

Spivack: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. EQ410015RT (9/22/16) [5-pg. doc.]