Suit: Woman Married Dying 87-Year Old Tenant To Inherit Succession Rights In Low-Priced, Rent-Controlled Apt; Landlord To Judge: Give Her The Boot!

In New York City, the New York Post reports:

• The object of this woman's love was really a rent-controlled apartment, a frustrated West Village landlord says. Sarah Berman wed ailing 87-year-old Stanley Lowell last September and inherited his cheap digs at 302 W. 12th St. when he died just a month later.



• The landlord is now trying to evict Berman, saying it's not fair for her to take over the apartment after such a brief period of wedlock. And at age 63, Berman could be paying his cheap rent for many years to come.



• Court papers don't disclose Berman's rent, and neither she nor the landlord could be reached for comment. But a neighbor guessed her monthly payment could be as little as $400, in a building where market rents can run to more than $5,000.



• The building's owner, Fourth FGP LLC, doesn't believe the grieving newlywed married for love, accusing her of using "gamesmanship, seduction and artifice" to get her man and his bachelor pad.



• The company wants a Manhattan Supreme Court judge to give Berman the boot, arguing in legal papers that she tricked the vulnerable Lowell into wedded bliss "to wrongfully procure succession rights to the apartment."

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• The landlord, which wants "immediate possession" of Lowell's unit, insists in court papers that Lowell would have "lacked the mental capacity to understand the nature, effects and consequences of the purported marriage."

For the story, see Gal got a groom for rent (Landlord's claim in evict bid).