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EVICTION

HP PROCEEDING

Succession - Immediate Family



	You are a rent regulated tenant and a member of your immediate family is going to live with you and you may be contemplating allowing this person to succeed to your rights to the apartment. You should send the landlord the following letter.
	Dear Mr. Landlord: My (mother/sister/grandmother, etc.) has come to live with me. (He/She) is _____ years of age. My (mother/sister/grandmother, etc.) if he or she resides in the apartment for ____ years will have the right to succession and may elect to exercise such right. I am sending you this letter to record this matter. Very truly yours, ___________________
	As to how to protect this right, please note the following: This letter should be sent certified mail return receipt requested and ordinary mail with a certificate of mailing. Open a file in which you will keep a copy of the letter with the receipts of same. This should be kept in a safe place because it may be many years before you will have to produce same to back up the succession claim. Your immediate family member, upon coming to live in your apartment, should do the following:
	Transfer registration at the Board of Elections and hold on to a copy of the document to place in the file. Transfer all bank accounts to the new address. The law requires within 10 days of relocation that the Motor Vehicle Bureau is notified and a new license should be issued to this new address. It would be a good idea to add the name to the utility accounts if that is possible. Make certain there is a complete surrender of your prior living quarters as soon as possible. (Here, it is helpful to obtain a letter from your old landlord confirming date of surrender and keep the letter in your file. Make sure your relocation is recorded with your employer so that the W-2 will come to this address. Your mail should be transferred as soon as possible.
	Where your mail is received is extremely important. I suggest you do not open a Post Office Box during the period you are qualifying for succession. The law is that unless the immediate family member who moves in is 62 years of age or disabled there will not be succession until that immediate family member lives in the apartment for two years as his or her primary residence. If 62 years or older or disabled the period of time is reduced to one year. If this is a Mitchell Lama you must include the immediate family members income on any income affidavit which may lead to a surcharge on the rent. An immediate family member must fall in the following classification: son, daughter, parent, brother, sister, in-laws. (Adopted children are also immediate family members.)
	Succession - Non Immediate Family
	Suppose that the one coming to live with you is not within the class of immediate family but is a cousin, nephew, niece, or close enough friend to be deemed a significant other. Now all I suggest you do is send the landlord the following letter.

	Dear Mr. Landlord: Mr. or Ms. _______________ has come to live with me as a roommate. Very truly yours, ___________________ Your name Send the letter certified mail return receipt and ordinary mail with a certificate of mailing. Then follow all suggestions that I have already listed under succession as to immediate family. But now there are additional things that have to be done in order to demonstrate the emotional bond which need not be any sexual bond. Know here that the landlord may challenge at the point of succession and therefore this bond can be demonstrated by doing the following: Open a joint bank account with your roommate joint and survivor. Name your roommate as beneficiary of your life insurance policy. Go to family gatherings, dinners, etc. with your roommate and make sure you have photographs of the occasions. Take trips with your roommate and make sure you have photographs of these trips. Go down to the Municipal Building and obtain a domestic partners certificate. Appoint your roommate executor of your will and leave a substantial bequest to your roommate. If one of you travels, send postcards and gifts home to the other and make sure all this is documented. Now not everything I have here listed need be done. But, the more that you do will make the claim stronger in building the record for succession. You can also consider adoption as an alternative which would by law make your roommate an immediate family member. (While you usually think of adoption in terms of children, there is nothing in the law that stops an adult person from adopting another adult.)

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