FM United LLC v Dule-Wollin

[*1] FM United LLC v Dule-Wollin 2014 NY Slip Op 51767(U) Decided on December 17, 2014 Appellate Term, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports.

Decided on December 17, 2014
SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE TERM, FIRST DEPARTMENT
PRESENT: Schoenfeld, J.P., Shulman, Ling-Cohan, JJ.
570603/14

FM United LLC, Petitioner-Landlord-Respondent,

against

Jennifer Dule-Wollin and Lonnie Wollin, Respondents-Tenants-Appellants.

Tenants, as limited by their briefs, appeal from so much of an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County (Brenda S. Spears, J.), dated July 15, 2014, as denied their motion to dismiss the petition in a holdover summary proceeding.

Per Curiam.

Order (Brenda S. Spears, J.), dated July 15, 2014, affirmed, with $10 costs.

We agree that summary dismissal of this holdover proceeding is unwarranted. Landlord's postpetition offer and execution of a renewal lease, as required by the Rent Stabilization Code (see 9 NYCRR § 2523.5[a]), did not void landlord's previously served notice to terminate the lease based on tenants' alleged chronic rent delinquency, since the "act of renewing the lease was not one of free will but of adhering to the requirements of law" (Waterside Plaza, LLC v Smith, 12 AD3d 231, 236 [2004], quoting Kibel v Appel, 147 Misc 2d 141, 142 [1990]; see Chelsea 19 Assoc. v James, 67 AD3d 601, 602 [2009]). The landlord was obligated under the regulatory scheme to renew the stabilized lease for a one or two-year period at the tenants' option, "thereby maintaining the status quo pending determination of this [proceeding] - which, it should be noted, is to the tenant's substantial benefit" (Waterside Plaza, LLC v Smith, 12 AD3d at 236).

Inasmuch as tenants' appellate briefs do not substantively address the court's imposition of Rule 130 sanctions, we deem the issue to have been abandoned (see Custer v Cortland Hous. Auth., 266 AD2d 619, 620, n 1 [1999], lv denied 94 NY2d 761 [2000]).

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT.

I concur I concur I concur
Decision Date: December 17, 2014