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Succession Rights to Rent Stabilized Apartments
Generally,
if the tenant of record vacates an apartment or dies, everyone else in
the apartment must move out. This is not true for apartments subject to
rent stabilization and rent control.
Rent
stabilization and rent control regulations provide for a two-year rule:
any family member living with the tenant for two years keeps the apartment
after the tenant dies or leaves.
But what
if you are not a blood relative? What if you simply lived with the tenant?
What if you were in a common law relationship?
In the
case of Braschi v. Stahl, 74 NY2d 201, 544 NYS2d 784 (1989), the New York
Court of Appeals expanded the concept of family under the code to include
the nontraditional family member. A nontraditional family member
is defined as "any person residing with the tenant as a primary resident
who can prove emotional and financial commitment and interdependence between
such person and the tenant." Among the relevant factors to this determination
are:
-
Longevity of relationship;
- Sharing
of household and other necessary expenses;
- Intermingling
of finances;
- Engaging
in family-type activities and holding out publicly as family members;
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Formalizing legal obligations (e.g. in a will);
- Any
other pattern of behavior that evidences the intention to create
a long-term, emotionally committed relationship.
- 9
NYCRR § 2520.6(o)(2) (Rent Stab.); 9 NYCRR § 2204,6(d)(3)(I) (Rent
Control).
Having
a long-term relationship is one thing; proving it is another. Outside
of the specifics of each case and the predilections of the particular
judge, it is impossible to tell how much proof will be enough. Documentary
evidence is extremely important, but so are vacation photos where the
tenant and the family member flew to Costa Rica one summer. A good approach
is to have many different types of evidence (financial documents, testimony,
photos, grocery receipts, personal letters, etc.) going back as far as
possible (two-year minimum).
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