After 25 years, a challenge to a tenant’s rights

Robert Nocco recently moved out of his rent-controlled home, where his parents had first lived around 50 years ago, the New York Times reported, but it wasn’t of his own accord. The building’s owner, Dexter Gurrieri, president of Vandenberg Real Estate, accused Nocco of violating the terms of his rent-control agreement more than 30 years ago. Turns out Nocco had signed an affidavit asserting that his parents had moved out of the apartment in 1976, the same year he moved into the space; in order to take over the rent-controlled unit, Nocco had to have lived with his parents for two years before they move out. Nocco asserts that his father lived in the unit almost 10 years after Nocco moved in — so Nocco believes he should have been allowed to stay. But Nocco, who paid $212 a month for the unit, one floor of a Brooklyn Heights townhouse, took a settlement and moved on.