Landlord Must Add Tenant's Wife's Name to Rent-Stabilized Renewal Lease

Rent-stabilized tenants, a married couple, filed a lease violation complaint with DHCR. They claimed that landlord didn't include the wife's name in its 2021 renewal lease offer and that it failed to deduct a $72 utility allowance from the legal regulated rent. The DRA ruled for tenants and directed landlord to offer tenant a renewal lease based on a prior DHCR order establishing the LRR at $634.44 per month. The LRR must also be further reduced by the electric utility allowance of $84 in effect for 2021 and 2022. The DRA also ordered landlord to amend yearly apartment registrations for 2019 through 2022 to reflect the names of both tenants. Tenants appealed and lost. They sought a number of modifications to the DRA's order concerning what should be in a future renewal lease. The DHCR found that, while the prior lease violation complaint identified the apartment as a "Deep Rent Skewed Unit" under a NYC HFA agreement, this need not be repeated in the DRA's order or the directed renewal lease because it wasn't essential to the DRA's determination. The legal rent for the apartment had already been determined in a prior DHCR rent overcharge order. Tenants also objected to the DRA order's directive that landlord may not increase the rent until the first rental payment occurring 90 days after the date of a proper lease offer. But this language was based directly on the Rent Stabilization Code and need not be removed. 

Livermen: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. KR210019RT (10/11/22)[3-pg. document]