Questions of Fact Require Trial on Whether Apartment Was Unregulated

Landlord sued to evict tenant for nonpayment of rent, claiming that the apartment was unregulated. Tenant, in turn, claimed that he was rent stabilized and that there was a rent overcharge. The court denied landlord's request to dismiss the overcharge claim, finding that there were many questions of fact that required a trial.

Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord claimed that the apartment was unregulated either because: (a) the building had been substantially rehabilitated; (b) the apartment had been substantially altered and therefore a new apartment was created subject to a first rent; or (c) the apartment otherwise would have been deregulated under high-rent vacancy deregulation. But the court properly found that, as a matter of law: (a) landlord failed to show that the claimed substantial rehab took place in a substandard or seriously deteriorated building; (b) landlord didn't submit proof of any apartment reconfiguration to support a claim of a newly created unit; and (c) recent changes to the Rent Stabilization Law under the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act required consideration of all available rent history records to determine whether a rent overcharge exists, and no rent registrations had been filed since 2005. Landlord failed to show, as a matter of law, why the rent should not be frozen at the last registered rent.

325 Melrose, LLC v. Bloemendall: 2019 NY Slip Op 29326 (App. T. 2 Dept.; 10/18/19; Weston, JP, Aliotta, Elliot, JJ)