Lucas A. Ferrara in New York Times Real Estate Section, CAN INCOME BE ASSIGNED TO A PART-TIME RESIDENCE?, November 24, 2006.
Q. My wife and I live in a rent-stabilized apartment with a monthly rent over $2,000. In a couple of years, I will be 70½ and will be required to take a withdrawal from my I.R.A. That withdrawal will push us over the $175,000 limit and could jeopardize our rent-regulated status.
Since we don’t live in the apartment for four months of the year, is it possible for me to attribute a third of my income to my summer residence and thus stay under the $175,000 limit in New York?
A. Lucas A. Ferrara, a Manhattan real estate lawyer, said that rent-regulated apartments may be deregulated when the monthly rent exceeds $2,000 and when the tenant’s annual household income — that is, the federal adjusted gross income as reported on New York State income tax returns — exceeds $175,000 for two years running. “Under current regulations there is no formula for apportioning the household income in the manner proposed by the letter writer,” he said.
But Mr. Ferrara noted that deregulation is not automatic. A landlord must first serve a tenant with an Income Certification Form on or before May 1 of a given year and must file a petition for deregulation with the Department of Housing and Community Renewal no later than June 30 of that same year. If a landlord misses this “window period,” the process is delayed until the next year.