No Indicia of Fraud to Warrant 30-Year Lookback at Rent History

Rent-stabilized tenant sued landlord in 2018, claiming rent overcharge. Tenant moved into the apartment in February 1988, 30 years before filing the overcharge claim. Current landlord bought the building in 2005. Tenant claimed that rent registration records showed that a prior apartment tenant who lived in the apartment before June 1, 1985, paid $704 per month in rent. The next tenant, who immediately preceded the complaining tenant, paid $1,600 per month. Tenant argued that this 200 percent rent increase demonstrated that his own 1988 vacancy lease was illegal. Landlord asked the court to dismiss the case. The court ruled for landlord.

Tenant appealed and won. Based on HSTPA amendments to the Rent Stabilization Law enacted in June 2019, the appeals court found that tenant's claim for rent overcharge during the six years before starting the court action was timely. After the appeals court ruling, landlord asked the court again to dismiss the case based on the Court of Appeals April 2020 decision in Regina Metropolitan v. DHCR, which revoked application of an expanded base date (absent fraud) in overcharge claims made before June 14, 2019. Tenant argued that the case involved fraud and therefore the court still could look back more than four years.

The court ruled for landlord and dismissed the case. Tenant failed to show there was a fraudulent scheme to deregulate the apartment. The apartment was at all times rent stabilized. Nothing in the four-year lookback period indicated any fraud that would compel the court to travel back more than 30 years, to the 1980s, to review rent history records. There was no basis to invoke the lookback exception to the four-year rule, and the court dismissed tenant's overcharge claim.

Zitman v. Sutton LLC: Index No. 652015/2018, 2020 NY Slip Op 32924(U)(Sup. Ct. NY; 9/3/20; Bluth, J)