Insufficient Grounds for Tenant's Fraudulent Deregulation Claim

Tenant sued landlord, claiming that landlord had fraudulently raised his apartment rent in January 2001 to remove the unit from rent stabilization through vacancy deregulation. Tenant also claimed that there was a resulting rent overcharge. The court ruled against tenant. While tenant claimed that landlord either didn't make any individual apartment improvements (IAIs) or exaggerated them before increasing the apartment rent to exceed the vacancy deregulation threshold then in effect, he presented no facts to support that claim. The court noted that, since the allegations concerning fraudulent deregulation in this case all occurred before June 14, 2019, pre-HSTPA law applied. The court found that, under that law, this was an insufficient basis to claim rent fraud. The court also pointed out that tenant's claim also was insufficient under the new, more lenient standard involving rent fraud that was found in the rent stabilization law amendments signed into law in December 2023.

Buffo v. 208-10 East 7th LLC: Index No. 160910/2023, 2024 Misc. LEXIS 2813 (Sup. Ct. NY; 6/24/24; Frank, J)