Opinion ID: 2099863
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Question Of A Valuable Equity Right Of Rental

Text: Mrs. Kelley claims she has a valuable equity righta full proprietary right []of rental under the contract which the surcharge violates. We disagree. Neither the perpetual use contract nor the bylaws grant an equity right of rental to Mrs. Kelley in the sense she means: an essentially unrestricted right to rent subject only to a qualified right of the Board to approve the tenant. The words of each document are clear and unambiguous in giving owner's only a highly restricted right to rent. Section 6(d) of the perpetual use contract conditions the owner's lease or the sub-lease of an apartment on the written consent of the Co-operative. Section 62 of the bylaws states that [t]he control by the Board of Directors of the right of occupancy extends to leasing or subleasing by either resident or equity members and [a]pplication for authority to lease or sublease shall be made to the Board of Directors in the form and upon such terms as it may, from time to time, prescribe. While § 61 of the bylaws, which concerns the sale or transfer of a contract, recognizes that valuable equity rights arise from the purchase of use contracts, [2] § 62 regarding leasing and subleasing does not. [3] Nonetheless, Mrs. Kelley maintains that the case of Abbot v. Bralove, 81 F.Supp. 532 (D.D.C.1948), aff'd 176 F.2d 64 (1949), is authority for the existence of a valuable equity right of rental under the contract. We are not persuaded by her argument. Although it construed the Broadmoor's perpetual use and equity contract, Abbot involved a different issuethe status or characterization of purchasers of cooperative apartments, under the Emergency Rent Act. There the trial court (affirmed on appeal) concluded that the purchasers were landlords... entitled ... to the possession of apartments purchased by them for their personal use and occupancy. 81 F.Supp. at 540. As such, they had the right to oust from their purchased apartments tenants by sufferance who had resided in the building prior to conversion. Although the trial court in Abbot cited certain indicia of ownership, none of these indicia included a valuable equity right of rental. [4] Mrs. Kelley also relies upon an affidavit submitted by Edmund C. Flynn who, together with his father, converted the Broadmoor into a cooperative. He asserted that in 1947 and 1948, it was understood and agreed that [the original] members [of the cooperative] had the right to rent their apartment units subject to the provision that the persons renting the apartment be approved by the Board, and that the Broadmoor and its Board never intended, nor interpreted, the Perpetual Use and Equity Contracts to give the Board the right to impose such surcharges on the monthly operating assessment or any other financial penalty as a condition of renting the apartments. Furthermore, his affidavit stated that the equity rights accorded under the contract were intended to include the right to rent the apartment without payment of any surcharge or other penalty of a nature or amount to discourage rentals. Even if the Flynn affidavit established the intent of the Broadmoor to convey a valuable equity right of rental through the contract, it constitutes extrinsic evidence and may not be used to vary the terms of an unambiguous contract. Extrinsic evidence of the parties' subjective intent may be resorted to only if the document is ambiguous. 1010 Potomac Associates v. Grocery Mfrs. of Am., Inc., 485 A.2d 199, 205 (D.C.1984). Since the contract is not ambiguous, the Flynn affidavit may not be used to vary its terms. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the trial court did not err in determining that the contract confers no valuable equity right to rent apartment 613 on Mrs. Kelley. Moreover, we find no basis for such a right in either the Abbot decision or the bylaws. Both the contract and the bylaws condition the rental of an apartment on the consent of the Board. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's order dated March 9, 1995.