Apartment Wasn't Lawfully Deregulated Before June 14, 2019

Tenant complained of rent overcharge, improper deregulation, and landlord's failure to offer him a rent-stabilized renewal lease. The DRA ruled for tenant on all counts and ordered landlord to refund $4,448 to tenant. Landlord appealed and lost. Under the law in effect while the case was before the DRA, the four-year base date was April 18, 2013. Since landlord failed to prove a higher legal regulated rent was in effect from the leases submitted, the base date rent was $1,525 per month. Landlord didn't register the apartment between 2014 and 2017 until November 2018. So, the DRA properly ruled in November 2018 that the apartment rent was frozen at the legal stabilized monthly rent of $1,586 from May 1, 2013, until the unit was registered in 2018. Landlord's deregulation claim was unsupported. The rent charged was never in excess of any deregulation threshold, and none of the leases offered prior to 2011 contained riders stating that the apartment was subject to deregulation after J-51 benefits expired. Claimed individual apartment improvements (IAIs) also were unsupported by sufficient proof. The contractor invoice post-dated the claimed payments, and copies of the checks indicated that not all of the payments were for tenant's apartment. The DRA correctly ruled that the apartment wasn't subject to high-rent deregulation.

RGS Ninth Avenue Realty LLC: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. GX410019RO (8/6/19) [3-pg. doc.]