LANDLORD’S WITNESS LACKED “PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE”
After its non-primary residence proceeding against a rent-controlled tenant was dismissed by the Kings County Civil Court, 456 LLC appealed.
And on its review of the record, the Appellate Term, Second Department, noted that while it was alleged that the tenant wasn’t really living in the Brooklyn apartment, the evidence presented by the landlord was a bit sketchy. Apparently, its witness lacked “personal knowledge of tenant’s occupancy of the building.” And while the tenant admitted she spent time at her daughter’s place in Pennsylvania, that, in and of itself, didn’t unequivocally establish that she lacked an “ongoing” and “substantial” nexus with the regulated apartment in Brooklyn.
Since the landlord failed to show, by the “preponderance of the evidence,” that the tenant really lived elsewhere, the underlying dismissal was affirmed.
Think they beat the living daylights out of that?
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