Rent Restoration Date Changed to Reflect When Repairs Were Completed

Tenant complained of a reduction in services in his apartment. The DRA ruled for tenant based on an inoperative stove pilot, cracked/broken kitchen floor tiles, a refrigerator door that didn’t close properly, inadequate freezer temperature, vermin control, and a broken radiator cover. The DRA later granted landlord’s application to restore rent in part in 1995, based on restoration of all services except the kitchen floor/covering and the living room radiator cover. In November 2014, landlord filed a second rent restoration application. Tenant claimed in response that the radiator cover hadn’t been installed. Landlord then advised tenant that it would install the cover on March 10, 2015. Installation was confirmed by DHCR inspection on March 30, 2015, and rent restoration was granted with an effective date of Dec. 1, 2014.

Tenant appealed and won. The DHCR has consistently ruled that the effective date of rent restoration for a rent-stabilized apartment would be changed to a later date where it was shown that repairs were completed at a time subsequent to the date of actual service of landlord’s rent restoration application on tenant. It would be unfair to tenant to restore rent effective on the first rent payment date following delivery of landlord’s rent restoration application to tenant, when not all services were restored at that time. The rent restoration date was changed from Dec. 1, 2014, to April 1, 2015, the first rent payment date after repairs were completed.

Hassman: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. DP410023RT (12/11/15) [3-pg. doc.]