4th-generation resident of rent-stabilized Manhattan apartment fights eviction

“I’ve been scared to put in any major furniture, like a new couch or coffee table or anything, or a TV, because at any moment I could just kind of be evicted,” she said one evening in late March.

The rent-stabilized unit belonged to her grandmother, Gisela Venta-Perez. Vines, 22, is the fourth generation in her family to call the apartment home. She claims she lived there with Venta-Perez for about two-and-a-half years, until her grandmother’s death last spring. Now, Vines wants to stay in the apartment, which she said Venta-Perez rented for about $900 a month. But the owner of the building said she doesn’t meet the strict criteria to take on a deceased relative’s rent-stabilized lease.

New York law only allows family members to inherit a relative’s rent-stabilized unit if they lived there together for at least two years — with some caveats — immediately before the tenant died or moved away. The rules are meant to limit who can claim the right to a coveted affordable home in a tight housing market. They also provide a path for landlords to turn over apartments that may have been occupied by the same family for decades.

In Vines’ case, she and the owner disagree about whether she actually lived in the unit before her grandmother’s death. Both sides are expected to make their arguments at a hearing in housing court this week, and the outcome could determine whether Vines will be evicted. The case highlights how difficult it can be for family members to pass down precious New York City real estate when they don't own it themselves.

“It’s not even about the rent,” Vines said. “Even if I found rent cheaper than here, [that's] not my apartment. It’s not my grandmother’s apartment. It’s not the place that my great-grandmother held me for the first time. It’s not the place that my mom called home, and it’s not the place that made me love New York.”

For decades, Vines’ grandmother lived in the rent-stabilized, two-bedroom apartment around the corner from Fort Tryon Park. The unit has housed her family since 1977, Vines said, when her great-grandmother, a Cuban immigrant, moved in. Vines said she started living there part time in August 2021, when she enrolled in college in Westchester.

The building’s owner, Jesse Deutch, told Gothamist in an email that “an apartment is not an inheritance” and that Vines has not submitted the necessary documents to prove she has the right to succeed her grandmother as a tenant.

“We are not in the business of just allowing somebody to just come live in a vacant apartment, without going through the channels of what it requires to do so,” he later said in a phone interview. “We are required by law to do everything that we need to do to uphold rent regulations.”

Not ready to say goodbye

Vines was born in New York but moved to Florida as a toddler, she said. In sixth grade, she said, she slept over at her grandmother’s apartment during a visit to New York City. Vines said her mom warned her that she would be up all night because of the noisy motorbikes and sirens. But she wasn’t deterred.

“I’m going to sleep through this. This is fine,” Vines remembered thinking. “I could be a New Yorker. I could live in this apartment.”

After Vines was accepted to SUNY Purchase in Westchester, she unpacked some of her belongings at her grandmother’s apartment and some in her dorm, she said.

From the start, Vines said, she felt more at home with her grandmother than on campus.

“ My whole freshman year was just doing my classes and doing my work and running back to the apartment the second I could to go to the Met Cloisters with my grandma or go see a movie or go out to eat,” she said.

The apartment felt like her sanctuary, Vines said. It was where she said she could escape the stresses of class and the COVID-19 pandemic, eat rice and beans, watch Charlie Chaplin movies and seek her grandmother’s advice.

“She really became my best friend,” Vines said.

Venta-Perez died early on the morning of March 5, 2024, according to her death certificate. She was 72 years old.

Vines remembered sitting at the door to the apartment and sobbing days later, unable to go in alone and see the space without her grandmother. She said she was unsure about whether to stay in New York after graduating that spring or move back in with her parents while she searched for a job. But she ultimately decided to remain in her grandmother’s apartment.

“If I said goodbye to this place, it was a final goodbye to her,” she said. “And I was just nowhere near ready to say that and do that.”

Deutch said he sympathized with Vines and that his management team “went above and beyond” to try to help her, including offering her other apartments to apply for.

“ My heart bleeds for her and her family about the loss her grandmother,” he said.

Strict criteria to pass down a rent-stabilized apartment

Rent stabilization is a New York program that limits how much building owners can raise the rent for qualifying units. Family members — by blood, marriage or emotional and financial dependence — can claim succession rights for a rent-stabilized apartment, but only if they can prove they lived there with the tenant for at least two years immediately before their death or permanent departure. There are exceptions to the two-year requirement, including for people who are full-time students, like Vines was when she says she was living with her grandmother.

Vines doesn’t contest that she lived part of the week in her dorm. But she said she spent long weekends, holidays and spring break with her grandmother and sometimes slept over when she had time in the middle of the week. Vines provided Gothamist with medical records from 2022 and 2023 that list the Fort George apartment as her address, as well as food receipts from businesses in the neighborhood. She also shared screenshots of text exchanges with her grandmother from different points in 2022 where they coordinated plans for their time together.

But Adam Leitman Bailey, a real estate attorney not connected to the case, said a common benchmark for a primary residence is staying there at least 183 days a year. He said the student exception typically applies to people who were already living in the unit for an extended amount of time before enrolling in school.

“She’s got a losing case,” he said. “There’s no doubt.”

Sherwin Belkin, another real estate lawyer, said a family member can also establish that an apartment was their primary residence if they used the address on government documents, like a driver’s license or a voter registration.

“Prescriptions and magazines and those things are nice, but they’re not as weighty for most judges as publicly declared documents,” he said.

Deutch, the building owner, said it’s up to the courts and the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal to decide whether Vines qualifies to keep the apartment. Vines is due in court Wednesday for a hearing in her case. A spokesperson for the state agency said it doesn’t comment on pending applications for succession rights.

Legislators updated the state’s rent regulation laws in 2019 to prevent landlords from leasing rent-stabilized units at market rate when the tenant dies or moves out. Since the new laws took effect, Leitman Bailey said, it’s become less common for property owners to try to evict relatives in these situations. He said they don’t have the same incentives to vacate those apartments, because they can’t hike up the rent nearly as much as they once could.

“They can’t afford to pay their expenses. They can’t afford to pay the mortgage, the repairs, the super,” he said. “They believe the law is intended to bankrupt landlords.”

But he and Belkin both said there are a few reasons why a landlord might be inclined to pursue eviction if they believe a relative doesn’t qualify for succession. In this case, they said, the owner might also be able to boost his income if a new tenant with a housing subsidy moves in. Property records for the building show the owner is allowed to collect more than the rent-stabilized amount for tenants receiving rental assistance.

The monthly amount could vary, depending on what the paying agency approves. As of January 2024, the maximum amount the federal Section 8 program and the city’s own aid program would pay is $3,027. That’s more than three times the approximately $900 a month Vines said her grandmother paid. The property owner has not accepted Vines’ attempts at paying rent.

Deutch said if he brought in a new tenant, he would only be able to rent the unit for “marginally better than what it’s currently rented for.” He said there are some benefits he could get but declined to say what those benefits might be.

“When you start to manage as much as we manage, you do become part of these people’s families,” he said. “That’s a fortunate truth, but unfortunate in a sense, too, because at the end of the day, we need to be able to collect the rent in order to pay our bills.”

Vines said it would be devastating to lose an apartment with four generations of history. She said she can still imagine Venta-Perez cooking when she sits in the kitchen.

“I miss her so much,” Vines said. “I just want to make her proud. And I want to keep her around, and her spirit, for as long as possible.”

David Brand contributed reporting.