Until recently, courts in non-primary residence holdover proceedings turned a blind eye in those instances where tenants previously made statements or representations in their tax returns—under penalty of perjury—that directly contradicted their claims of primary residence. That all changed pursuant to the First Department’s July 7, 2015 ruling in Ansonia Assoc. Partnership v. Unwin,1 where the court ruled that a tenant who claimed in her tax returns that she used her apartment solely for business purposes would be estopped from claiming in a non-primary residence holdover proceeding that she actually lived in the apartment.
Background
Pursuant to L 1971, ch 373, the New York State Legislature amended the various rent regulatory statutes to exclude from coverage apartments not occupied as the tenant’s primary residence. In his memorandum of support of Chapter 373, Governor Nelson Rockefeller stated:
