Missing Rent Registration Resulted in Rent Freeze

Rent-stabilized tenant complained of rent overcharge in 2018. The DRA ruled for tenant and ordered landlord to refund $2,353, including interest. Landlord appealed and lost.  Landlord claimed that the legal regulated rent when tenant moved in on April 15, 2017, was $1,337. But the vacancy lease tenant signed stated that the rent was $1,100 per month. Landlord claimed that this was a preferential rent, but no purported higher legal regulated rent was preserved in the lease. Landlord may have been entitled to charge a higher legal regulated rent when tenant moved in, but failure to preserve such rent in the vacancy lease constituted a waiver. The fact that landlord may have registered a higher rent on April 1, 2017, also didn't preserve it since it wasn't stated in the lease. The DRA properly froze the collectible rent based on landlord's failure to file a 2016 annual registration. This registration wasn't filed until November 2021, after the DRA order was issued. The fact that landlord had registered the apartment in 2017 didn't matter since the rent review period went back to 2014 and encompassed the earlier period of non-registration in 2016. 

Sigma Residential Properties Corp.: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. JW610036RO (12/28/21)[3-pg. document]