Rent Overcharge Results from Pre-Base Date Overcharge Order

Rent-stabilized tenant complained of rent overcharge in 2017. The DRA ruled for tenant and ordered landlord to refund $20,625, including triple damages.

Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord argued that the DRA incorrectly applied HSTPA retroactively to look back more than four years to establish the rent overcharge. But the DHCR pointed out that the DRA didn’t rely on HSTPA in this decision. Instead, the DRA relied on a prior, 2008 rent overcharge ruling involving the same tenant. In response to the 2017 overcharge complaint, the DRA correctly used the legal rent listed in the prior order as a starting point to calculate the legal base-date rent. This resulted in the overcharge finding. The DHCR pointed out that in Cintron v. Calogero, New York’s highest court ruled in 2010 that a rent reduction order placed a “continuing obligation” on landlords to reduce rents until the required services underlying such order were restored.

The DHCR now ruled that the Cintron decision didn’t apply only to pre-base date rent reduction orders but also applied to a prior rent overcharge. Therefore, the DHCR could rely on the prior pre-base date order to find a rent overcharge.

Renissance Equity: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. IX210003RO (8/11/21)[4-pg. document]