London Terrace Gardens served a notice of termination on a rent-controlled tenant claiming the apartment was no longer the guy's primary residence.
Kenneth Heller supposedly lacked a "physical nexus" with the unit because he allegedly spent less than 183 days a year there.
Because the governing law -- NYC Rent and Eviction Regulations ยง 2204.3 -- requires notices in a nonprimary residence case to state the grounds for a tenant's eviction and the "facts necessary to establish the existence of such ground," the New York County Civil Court dismissed the proceeding due to the document's factual deficiency.
On appeal, the Appellate Term, First Department, thought the notice's lack of "'case-specific facts,'" including the address where Heller was alleged to primarily reside, rendered the case fatally defective. ("To uphold the studiously vague termination notice here under review would, for all practical purposes, eviscerate the plain language of the governing notice regulation and undermine its salutary purpose to discourage baseless eviction claims founded upon speculation and surmise, rather than concrete facts.")
Tain't nothing vague about that!
To view the full text of the Appellate Term's decision, please follow this link: London Terrace Gardens L.P. v. Heller