HOW COMFORTABLE WAS THAT COUCH?

You can't blame Mary Hershberger for trying to stake a succession claim to her grandmother's (below market) rent-controlled Manhattan apartment. We'd like one, too.
As we have previously reported, certain family members may "succeed" to a regulated unit--that is, remain in the apartment as a tenant in their own right--provided they have lived in the apartment with the tenant-of-record for at least two years immediately preceding the tenant-of-record's demise or relocation. [When the person claiming the succession right is a senior citizen--62 years of age or older--or a disabled individual, that contemparaneous-occupancy timeframe is reduced to one year.]
Currently, the regulations permit a succession claim to be made by a tenant's spouse, children, stepchildren, parents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, grandchildren, fathers-in-law, mothers-in-law, sons-in-law or daughters-in-law. [Any person who shared an "emotional and financial commitment and interdependence" with the tenant may also qualify. However, in order to determine whether a claimant meets this latter standard, courts will examine a variety of factors, with no one element or group of elements being more persuasive than others.]
While Hershbberger, as the tenant's granddaughter, had a right to stake a succession claim, there were a few problems with her position. First, she appears to have maintained one or more places of residence in Queens County and many of her personal documents pointed to those Queens addresses (rather than the Manhattan unit). Second, the trial court did not believe that Hershberger contemporaneously occupied the one-bedroom apartment with her grandmother and home health aide. As a result, in Fanny Grunberg & Assoc., LLP v. Hershberger, the New York County Housing Court found that Ms. Hershberger had not satisfied her burden of proof and could not remain in possession of the rent-controlled space.
On appeal, the Appellate Term, First Department, affirmed the trial court's determination, noting as follows:

We agree that appellant, the granddaughter of the deceased tenant of record, failed to meet her affirmative obligation to establish succession rights to the rent controlled tenancy....The documentary evidence bearing on respondent's residence during the relevant time period listed not the subject Manhattan apartment, but alternate addresses in Queens, and the trial court, as fact-finder, reasonably could discredit respondent's testimony concerning her makeshift sleeping arrangements in the subject one-bedroom apartment occupied by her grandmother and a home health aide. "On a bench trial, the decision of the fact-finding court should not be disturbed on appeal unless it is obvious that the court's conclusions could not be reached under any fair interpretation of the evidence, especially when the findings of fact rest in large measure on considerations relating to the credibility of witnesses."....We have considered and rejected appellant's remaining arguments.