A landlord appealed from a Civil Court order which granted a tenant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the petition and denied, as moot, the landlord’s cross motion to amend its petition, for summary judgment and to dismiss the tenant’s affirmative defenses, in a nonpayment summary proceeding. The Appellate Term (court) denied the tenant’s motion for summary judgment, reinstated the petition and remanded the matter to the Civil Court for further proceedings in accordance with its decision.

The nonpayment proceeding, predicated on allegations that the apartment was “exempt from rent stabilization due to high rent vacancy, should not have been dismissed on tenant’s summary judgment motion.” The “tenant’s predecessors occupied the apartment as rent stabilized tenants from August 2013 through August 2014.” The “legal rent at the time of their vacancy, $2,330.55 per month, plus 18.25 percent vacancy increase allowance…, brought the legal rent above the $2,500 luxury decontrol threshold then in effect….”