Rent Restoration Granted Based on DHCR Inspection

Tenants complained of a reduction in building-wide services. The DRA ruled for tenants and reduced their rents based on findings that there were unworkmanlike repairs done to the walls in front of the mailboxes, peeling paint on stairway walls between the second and fourth floors, and green stains throughout the building's courtyard. The DRA later granted landlord's application to restore rents based on restoration of services. Tenants appealed and lost. Tenants argued that landlord's application form didn't indicate that the rent reduction was building-wide, failed to an include an affidavit from an independent licensed architect or engineer as instructed on the DHCR form for building-wide rent reductions, and that landlord didn't properly document performed repairs. But the DRA restored rents based on its own inspection of the conditions in question. 

Easterlin: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. GQ230024RT (6/27/19) [3-pg. doc.]