The apartment is in a trust. Who has to live there?

The fifth qualifying relationship on the notice is the sole beneficiary of a trust. If that person uses the property as a primary residence, the property can qualify for the exemption once the documents are in. The criterion in full is the trust path.

Two things the final rule settled

• Multiple individuals may collectively be sole current beneficiaries. A trust naming a married couple, or siblings, as its current beneficiaries is not automatically out.
• Contingent or future interests do not automatically disqualify. A remainder beneficiary who takes later does not by itself defeat the sole current beneficiary reading.

Both changes arrived in the adopted version of 19 RCNY Chapter 62 on July 14, 2026, not in the June 5 proposal, so a summary written off the draft may tell you the opposite.

The documents

• The trust agreement, plus an affidavit from the trustee identifying the current beneficiaries. What does that affidavit have to agree with? The affidavit layer.
• For the beneficiary who lives there: the most recent federal or state income tax return showing the property as the address, or a driver's license or other DMV-issued identification on its own; if neither exists, a voter identification card plus one other proof. The return leads for a reason: why the income tax return leads the list.

If the person living in the unit is an immediate family member of the owner rather than the beneficiary, that is a different criterion on the same notice, documented with marriage or birth certificates or affidavits.

The multi-tier limit applies here too

Multi-tier structures cannot establish primary residence. A trust that holds an LLC that holds the unit is exactly the arrangement the rule declines to look through, however clearly the beneficiary lives in the apartment.

Where do trusts and estates still have open ground?

The rule deems primary residency to continue for one year after a death, which covers the first year. Beyond that window the treatment of estates is unresolved, and the firms writing on this program have said so rather than guessed. If a trust or an estate will still hold the unit after that first year, read death or illness.