Four-Year Time Limit Applies to Fair Market Rent Appeal

Rent-stabilized tenant filed a fair market rent appeal 33 years after moving into his apartment. The DRA dismissed the complaint as untimely. Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant claimed that he never received an RR-1 initial rent registration form from landlord. Tenant also argued that the four-year time limit applied to rent overcharge complaints didn't apply to fair market rent appeals. Rent Stabilization Code Section 2522.3 states that no fair market rent appeal may be filed after four years from the date an apartment was no longer subject to rent control under the City Rent Law. The code also states that a fair market rent appeal will be dismissed if filed more than 90 days after the certified mailing to tenant of the RR-1 form.  Tenants claimed that the four-year limit applied for FMRAs wasn't authorized by the Rent Stabilization Law, as amended in 1997, which doesn't mention FMRAs. But the DHCR's interpretation of the law, applying the four-year rule to FMRAs, has ben upheld by two appeals courts. And it didn't matter that tenant never received an RR-1 form, because more than four years had passed since the apartment was decontrolled. 

Roloff: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. BV410009RT (9/24/14) [3-pg. doc.]