Landlord's Rent Agreement Upheld

Facts: In 1995, landlord and rent-stabilized tenant signed an agreement that, if the apartment became not subject to rent stabilization at some point in the future, landlord would nevertheless continue to offer tenant renewal leases at rent-guidelines rates, but at no less than 5 percent and no more than 10 percent. In 1999, the DHCR granted landlord’s application for high-income rent deregulation of tenant’s apartment. Landlord and tenant then renewed the lease several times based on the 1995 agreement. In 2006, landlord sued tenant and asked the court to revoke the agreement. Landlord now claimed that the agreement improperly prevented landlord from deregulating the apartment. Tenant asked the court to dismiss the case without a trial. The court ruled for tenant, and landlord appealed.

Court: Landlord loses. Landlord failed to bring its action to void the agreement within the six-year legal time limit. And the agreement wasn’t void at the outset and against public policy. Unlike some other cases where courts voided landlord-tenant agreements, here landlord and tenant didn’t deregulate the apartment by private agreement. And there was nothing impermissible about landlord’s agreement to offer tenant renewal leases based on rent-stabilization guidelines.

Oxford Towers Co. LLC v. Wagner: NYLJ, 1/8/09, p. 34, col. 5 (App. Div. 1 Dept.; Saxe, JP, Nardelli, Buckley, Moskowitz, Renwick, JJ)