Opinion
570828/03.
Decided January 7, 2005.
Respondent Hector Hernandez, Jr. appeals from a final judgment of the Civil Court of the City of New York, Bronx County, entered August 8, 2003 after a nonjury trial (Anthony J. Fiorella, Jr., J.) which awarded possession to petitioner in a holdover summary proceeding.
Final judgment entered August 8, 2003 (Anthony J. Fiorella, Jr., J.) affirmed, without costs.
PRESENT: HON. LUCINDO SUAREZ, P.J., HON. WILLIAM J. DAVIS, HON. MARTIN SCHOENFELD, Justices.
Giving due deference to the trial court's findings of fact and credibility ( see Claridge Gardens v. Menotti, 160 AD2d 544), we agree that appellant Hernandez did not meet his affirmative obligation to establish succession rights to the subject stabilized apartment ( see Rent Stabilization Code [ 9 NYCRR] § 2523.5[b][1], [e]). As appellant apparently now concedes, he derived no succession rights directly from his father, the deceased stabilized tenant, since the record indisputably shows that the two did not share occupancy of the apartment for the requisite two-year period preceding the father's death in August 2001. Nor is there merit to appellant's contention that he is entitled to succeed to the apartment derivatively through any tenancy rights of his mother who, as the record evidence persuasively shows and the trial court expressly found, had permanently vacated the apartment before appellant began occupancy in August 2000. We have considered and rejected appellant's remaining arguments.
This constitutes the decision and order of the court.