No Fraud Found Where Landlord Improperly Deregulated Apartment

Tenant complained of rent overcharge in 2016. The DRA ruled for tenant in part in 2018, and ordered landlord to refund $1,695 in excess security deposit. Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant claimed that her apartment had been improperly deregulated while the building received J-51 benefits, that landlord had committed fraud, and that the base date rent used by the DRA in calculating the legal rent was unreliable. The DHCR found that there was no fraud involved in landlord's deregulation of the apartment before the 2009 Court of Appeals Roberts decision affirmed that deregulation couldn't apply while J-51 was in effect. And landlord gave tenant a rent-stabilized lease and began registering tenant's apartment shortly after the Roberts case was decided. A four-year base date applied to this pre-HSTPA case, and pre-base date rental events are not reviewable because there was no colorable claim of a fraudulent scheme to deregulate. 

Green: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. IS210047RK (12/6/21)[6-pg. document]