FAILED TO RAISE DEFENSE IN HER ANSWER OR PRE-ANSWER MOTION
After the New York County Civil Court dismissed its holdover proceeding and referred the tenant’s counterclaims (which asserted rent-stabilization coverage and rent overcharge) to the DHCR, the landlord pursued an appeal.
On its review of the matter, the Appellate Term, First Department, noted that since one of the named parties was not a “landlord or lessor,” it lacked standing to bring a holdover case and dismissal had been appropriately granted against that entity. But since the other named party was the actual owner of the premises, the AT1 thought it was error to dismiss its pleadings on the grounds that it was a “foreign limited liability company that lacked a certificate of authority to do business in New York,” because the tenant failed to preserve that objection (by not raising it in her answer or asserting it in a pre-answer motion to dismiss).
It also thought it was “improvident” of the court to refer the counterclaims to the DHCR given that the Civil Court has “concurrent jurisdiction” to address rent-stabilization coverage and overcharge contentions, and there were no “extraordinary circumstances” which warranted the agency’s involvement.
Given that background, the AT1 vacated the underlying determination and remanded the case for further review of the respective parties’ claims.
Now that wasn’t foreign at all.
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DECISION