Landlord Seeks Ruling on Deregulation Status Through Rent Registration Amendment Application

In August 2014, landlord asked the DHCR to amend annual apartment registrations for 80 units in its building. Landlord claimed that the prior landlord had in recent years incorrectly registered deregulated apartments as rent stabilized. The DRA ruled against landlord a few months later, noting that landlord was seeking improperly to recalculate the units' rental histories.

Landlord appealed and lost. Rent Stabilization Code Section 2528.3(c) was added in 2014 to state that a landlord seeking to file an amended registration for other than the current registration year must file a DHCR application. The regulations further provided that this was for informational screening purposes only. Here, landlord was instead seeking a jurisdictional determination for many apartments based on events that occurred as far back as 2002 that the landlord claimed triggered deregulation. But deregulation that's based on high-rent vacancy or luxury decontrol has been tied directly to and is a consequence of determining the legal regulated rent. Such a determination of the lawful rent can't be made with the scope of a registration amendment application proceeding. The regulatory status of an apartment would more appropriately be determined in a rent overcharge or lease violation complaint or in "AD" proceeding involving the issue of rent stabilization status.

300 East 46th Street Owner, LLC: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. CV410040RO (12/14/21)[4-pg. document]