Court Opinion

ID: 9787780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:24:22.191036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:00.394883
License: Public Domain

Desmond, J.
(dissenting). I dissent and vote to affirm. I see no illegality in the Rent Commission’s refusal to use the sale price as a valuation base, nor do I see any necessity for a further hearing. Section 4 (subd. 4, par. [a], cl. [1]) of the State Residential Rent Law requires that in computing a 6% return the valuation used shall be the adjusted assessed valuation unless there has been a bona fide sale “ as the result of a transaction at arms ’ length * * * unaffected by special circumstances”. Thus the use of the sales price is itself an exception to the requirement of the use of the adjusted assessed value and the exception applies only when the sale is an arm’s length transaction unaccompanied by special circumstances. There certainly were special circumstances here. It could not be said either that this was an arm’s length transaction or that it was unaffected by special circumstances. The owners of the purchasing corporation had a 35% interest in the profit on the sale in which they themselves were the purchasers. This was a sufficient basis for holding that this was not the kind of arm’s length market place sale that the Legislature had in mind. The commission was, therefore, justified in refusing to use the sale price as a base.
*256Chief Judge Conway and Judges Fuld, Van Voorhis and Burke concur with Judge Froessel; Judge Desmond dissents in an opinion in which Judge Dye concurs.
Order reversed, etc.