Tenant's Grandson Neither Rent Controlled nor Rent Stabilized

Tenant claimed that he was rent controlled based on succession rights to his grandmother’s apartment. The DRA ruled against tenant and found that he was rent stabilized. Tenant appealed. Among other things, he claimed that the building’s board of directors previously had treated him as rent controlled. The DHCR ruled against tenant, and now also found that he wasn’t rent stabilized either. The DRA had conducted a hearing, and tenant was unable to prove that he lived in the apartment with his grandmother for the two-year period before she died in 1994. In addition, the building became a public-funded, nonprofit cooperative housing development for low-income tenants in 1990, under the Private Housing Finance Law. So the building was exempt from rent stabilization by law. Rent-control or rent-stabilization status can’t be based on an agreement between landlord and tenant if tenant isn’t subject to rent regulation by law.

Ruiz: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. XB420009RP (4/1/09) [33-pg. doc.]