Effective Date of MCI Rent Hike Delayed Until HPD Clears Violations

The DRA granted landlord's application for MCI rent hikes for pointing and roof installation but delayed the effective date to Jan. 1, 2016, after all "C" violations for lead paint were removed from HPD's database. Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord claimed that the effective date of the rent increases should be Aug. 1, 2013, since it took steps to clear the violations, but HPD took 30 months to remove the violations. Landlord pointed out that its MCI application was filed prior to the 2014 amendments to the rent regulations concerning the effect of immediately hazardous violations on MCI applications. Rent Stabilization Code Section 2522.4 now provides that the DHCR won't grant an MCI application if there are immediately hazardous violations when the application is filed. Previously, DHCR policy required tenants to raise the issue of these violations while the MCI application was pending. In this case, a tenant had raised the violations before the code was amended in 2014. And MCI applications pending as of the date the code was amended use Jan. 8, 2014, as the look-back period for outstanding violations. Landlord was notified and given the opportunity to remove the violations. Since lead paint violations are so serious, removal from HPD's database rather than an affidavit from an architect or engineer, was required, and the rent increase couldn't take effect until they were cleared. 

King's Park 148 LLC: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. EM130021RO (5/11/18) [2-pg. doc.]