TENANT COULDN’T SHOW THE BUILDING EVER CONSISTED OF SIX OCCUPIED APARTMENTS
When the tenant, D.S., asked the New York County Supreme Court to declare that her apartment was subject to the protections of rent stabilization, the request was denied, and the landlord was granted a money judgment and judgment of possession.
On appeal, the Appellate Division, First Department, noted that the building only had four (4) units since its renovation back in 1981, and that prior thereto, the apartments which were then on the fourth and fifth floors were never occupied.
Apparently, a 1937 certificate of occupancy showed that the building only consisted of two residential units, on the second and third floors. And that the apartments on the fourth and fifth flowers were required to “remain vacant.”
Since whether a building is subject to rent regulation “‘turns on the function of the units as housing accommodations (i.e. their continuous and exclusive use and occupancy as residences for a period of time),’” and because the tenant was unable to prevent evidence that the upper floor units were ever “occupied or intended to be occupied,” the AD1 was of the view that regulatory protections did not attach and that court below had correctly granted relief in the owner’s favor.
That had to be destabilizing ….
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DECISION