A More Equal Road to Succession in Regulated Apartments After <b><i>Obergefell</i></b> and the Marriage Equality Act

In Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. __ , 2015WL213646 (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated laws prohibiting marriage between same-sex couples. In New York, the right of a tenant not named on a lease to keep one's regulated apartment when the tenant named on the lease dies or vacates is in many cases a valuable right that affects whether one can remain in his home, or even in his city. Under the Rent Stabilization Code, spouses of a tenants of record do not share such a concern, as they have the automatic right to be added to the lease while residing there with the tenant of record. However, before New York's legalization of same-sex marriage, a gay person living with a tenant of record as a couple in a rent-regulated apartment did not have this automatic right to be added to a lease as a spouse, and could only claim that right through succession after the tenant of record died or vacated the apartment. 360 Associates v. Hyers and Pederson, N.Y. County Civ.Ct. Index 72743/13 (2015), illustrates the resulting problems and the impact of Obergefell.