I moved into my friend's rent stabilized apartment in 2015. She is the only one on the lease currently. For the past two years she has been subletting her room and the apartment manager recently found out and wants to charge a vacancy allowance. The LL has known of my presence for a few years now as we met when he came to look at repairing a leak in our window. LL has been accepting my personal checks for the entirety of the apartment rent for over a year now.
Is it possible that I have established a sort of tenancy by his acceptance of my full rent checks?Do I have any standing to be added to the lease officially without raising rent by the vacancy allowance-- or at least back date the allowance to when I moved in in 2015 to soften the blow of the rent jump? Any thoughts + advice are welcome and super appreciated.