Failure to Attach DHCR Rent Stabilization Riders to Renewal Leases Doesn't Invalidate Rents

Rent-stabilized tenant complained to the DHCR in February 2019 that he had been overcharged. Tenant argued that landlord made false claims that individual apartment improvements (IAIs) made before tenant moved into the unit cost $48,000. Tenant signed a one-year renewal lease starting June 1, 2016, at a legal rent of $2,606 and a preferential rent of $1,978. Tenant then refused to renew his lease and continued to pay $1,978 from June 2017 to December 2022. The DRA ruled against tenant, finding no overcharge.

Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant claimed that the base rent date was in 2013 rather than 2015 because he had filed a prior overcharge complaint against landlord in State Supreme Court, which was dismissed based on prior jurisdiction by the DHCR. The DHCR disagreed, finding that the DRA properly found that the base date rent in this case was February 2015. When the court dismissed tenant's prior complaint, it made no ruling to use any earlier filing date to calculate the base date. Tenant also claimed that fraud by the landlord warranted application of an earlier base rent date. But an allegedly improper rent increase in 2003 wasn't sufficient to support tenant's claim of a fraudulent scheme to deregulate the apartment. Landlord also consistently gave tenant rent-stabilized renewal leases with a preferential rent set forth in each lease. And failure to give tenant a DHCR Rent Stabilization Rider with each lease didn't invalidate any properly renewed leases or freeze tenant's rent.

Siguencia: DHCR Admin. Rev. Docket No. LO410026RT (6/15/23)[4-pg. document]