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I don't know what the specific rules in New York are like, but my home state draws a clear distinction between the "property owner" and the "legal occupant". The specific phrasing is different but it is very explicitly the legal occupant not the property owner who is considered to "have control over the occupancy or use of the property".
If New York State law follows the same general framework as mine, it is the act of accepting payment that transfers legal occupancy. I've even seen cases where this was a critical point of contention. If the landlord accepts any money goods or services from the tenant after informing the tenant that they were in violation of their lease that provision becomes effectively unenforceable because the tenant is still the legal occupant.
Technically the house in question is in Virginia, but I still see a distinction between the language and your description. I don't think James contests her was the legal occupant of the property, but it's not clear to me that being the legal is the same as having control over the occupancy or use. Like, the legal owner can presumably evict the legal occupant, right? Which would seem to entail control over occupancy. Downstream of that it seems like the property owner could also lawfully restrict the legal occupants use of the property. I've had rental agreements that prohibit using the rented property for commercial purposes, for example.
Not if they have accepted payment from the tenant. The landlord does not "have control over the occupancy or use of the property" the tenant does. Now the landlord can include provisions against X Y and Z, in the text of their contract/leasing agreement and cite a breach of that agreement (including failure to pay rent) as a reason for revoking the tenant's status as a legal occupant but that is hard to do without an agreement to point to.
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