Default Method Used to Set Base Date Rent

Rent-stabilized tenant complained of rent overcharge. The DRA ruled for tenant and ordered landlord to refund $15,633, including interest and triple damages. The DRA used the DHCR's default method to set the base rent because landlord submitted insufficient proof of the base date rent.

Landlord appealed and lost. The default method called for the DHCR to set the legal regulated rent as the lowest of: (a) the lowest registered rent for the same size apartment in the building; (b) the complaining tenant's rent minus any allowance for tenant's initial lease; or (c) the prior tenant's rent. The default rent doesn't include any vacancy or longevity increase that would otherwise be included in tenant's initial rent if a complete rent history was provided. In this case, landlord had submitted only a handwritten document setting forth the rent history and only after the DRA issued a Final Notice of Treble Damages to landlord. This document was insufficient proof of the base date rent since it appears to have been drafted in response to tenant's complaint and wasn't a contemporaneous business record created and kept in the ordinary course of business. So the DHCR found this document unreliable as a rent ledger. 

Ghegeliu: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. FQ110059RO (11/21/17) [3-pg. doc.]