October Insights
By Eileen O’Toole, Esq., Contributing Editor
The New York eviction moratorium continues to raise issues reviewed in both federal and state courts. After the U.S. Supreme Court enjoined enforcement of the CEEFPA provision permitting the mere filing of tenant Hardship Declarations to stop eviction cases from proceeding as long as the state eviction moratorium remained in effect (see LVT #31566), landlords sought additional relief from the Second Circuit appeals court and challenged the August 2021 NY statute that now permits landlords who show “good cause” to dispute Hardship Declarations. In Chrysafis v. Marks (LVT #31650), the Second Circuit denied landlords’ appeal of prior CEEFPA provisions as moot but left the door open for them to “attack the newly enacted legislation.”
In several local cases outside NYC, courts considered disputes over the effect of Hardship Declarations. This resulted, for example, in rulings that tenants who didn’t file a Hardship Declaration couldn’t delay eviction in a long pending case (LVT #31651), that a prior owner and a building occupant couldn’t use Hardship Declarations to avoid eviction in a protracted dispute that followed foreclosure and sale of the building (LVT #31652), and that a CEEFPA stay didn’t absolve tenants from the requirement to appear in court proceedings (LVT #31654).
The DHCR recently issued some additional rulings on “groupwork” in response to applications for rent increases based on major capital improvements. In several cases, the agency ruled against owners who challenged application of HSTPA amendments to exclude MCI increases for work on kitchen and bathroom apartment systems that had been permitted under rent regulation prior to June 14, 2019. The DHCR has upheld application of the groupwork disallowance to MCI applications pending on the effective date of HSTPA. But in one case (LVT #31645), the agency denied tenants’ PAR where the Rent Administrator had approved groupwork in a pre-HSTPA ruling.
The DHCR also denied a successor tenant’s claim that a landlord who gave him a renewal lease after the rent-stabilized tenant moved out must base the renewal increase on the prior tenant’s preferential rent rather than the higher legal regulated rent (LVT #31636). The prior tenant had been granted the preferential rent in a settlement agreement on that tenant’s rent overcharge claim, and the agreement made no provision for extension of the preferential rent to any successor tenant.
A DHCR rent reduction order based on elevator misleveling was revoked by a court in response to an owner’s Article 78 appeal (LVT #31630). The court found the DHCR’s decision unreasonable since its inspector’s report contained no photographs or other details concerning the claimed condition. And the court refused to send the case back to the DHCR, finding the agency’s conclusion that it may require an additional inspection to be insufficient to warrant a remand.