taking over a rent stabilized lease?

[Phil Cohen]

No, unless you are a member of the immediate family you have no rights to the lease.
Since you know the apt. is becoming vacant, you at least will be first on line to try to rent it from the LL. He will probably do "renovations" to boost the rent significantly, so it is hard to say what the new rent would be. Figure on a $200 increase at least.

[Phil Cohen]

This was just a ballpark estimate-- a guess. It could be quite a bit more than 20%. First there is a vacancy increase, then there is any increase he can tack on for improvements. Sometimes they really inflate those bills hugely.
So--who knows? -- it could be a lot more than $200.
Also the increase is based on the "legal regulated rent" not on the actual rent--in this case $1,000--which may be less.

[MikeW]

If you want the apartment, wait a month and approach the LL directly, without letting him know that you were friends with the previous tenant.

The going scam is as follows: the stabilized tenant leaves. The LL does a slapdash renovation, but gets paperwork that says he put enough money into the apartment to qualify for an MCI great enough to get the stabilized rent at or above $2K. They then declare the apartment deregulated, and file whatever paperwork to make this official. I don't think anyone at the goverment level reviews this unless there is a complaint. It just goes into the system. I think they need to get someone to actually pay $2K or more to actually get the apartment off of stabilization, so hell will freeze over before they'll rent it below that.

When the new tenant comes in, most likely they'll have no idea what happened. They just pay the rent they signed for. If they do get wise, pull the rent history from the DHRC, put two and two together, and decide to challenge the LL to the the apartment back on stabilization, they face a long (multi-year), expensive fight, where the onus will be on them to prove the LL lied about the money he put into the apartment.

The moral of all that is that a LL is NOT going to want to rent an apartment he want to deregulate to someone who knows the apartment's history (like a friend of the former tenant). You best bet is to play dumb, until, of course, you manage to get in.

[goldbourbon]

Here is something you can ask your friend to do, ask him to put your name on the lease. The landlord can raise the rent every time someone is added to the lease, but at least you an ensured that you have rights the apartment. I don't know when adding someone to the lease is allowed (like at lease renewal or any time), but later on, you can remove your friend's name from the lease. I don't know how viable this idea is but I had the same issue, and my friend (who is currently a landlord-but a nice one actually) suggested this option for me.

[Cranky Tenant]

My personal experience is, LLs are extremly reluctant to add names to the lease of Rent Stabilized apartments precisely because of this kind of situation - they don't want the apartment to pass on without a substantial increase.

Even if the LL is willing to add your name, he may require a full credit check just like any other tenant since you'll become responsible tor paying the rent.

[MikeW]

The LL is also unlikely to add anyone to the lease who is not legitimately succeedable (to coin a term). If the person doesn't meet the criteria for having succession rights to the the apartment, the LL will most likely not put them on the lease