Court Can Look Back More Than Six Years to Determine if Deregulation Was Improper

Landlord sued to evict unregulated tenant after tenant's lease expired and tenant didn't move out. Tenant claimed improper deregulation and asked for permission to conduct pre-trial questioning. The court ruled for tenant in light of the unexplained 192 percent rent increase in 1989, which increased the apartment rent from $565 to $1,650.

Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord argued that it wasn't required to produce rental history records for more than four years. The appeals court pointed out that, even prior to the enactment of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA), courts uniformly had required landlords to prove the change in an apartment's status from rent stabilized to unregulated even beyond the four-year statute of limitations. And HSTPA now applied a six-year statute of limitations and permits rent history review beyond that. HSTPA applied to pending cases, such as this case. 

Widsam Realty Corp. v. Joyner: 66 Misc.3d 132(A), 2019 NY Slip Op 52097(U) (App. T. 1 Dept.; 12/26/19; Ling-Cohan, JP, Cooper, J)