Tenant Can't Challenge Base Date Rent

Westchester County rent-stabilized tenant complained of a rent overcharge. The DRA found no overcharge and dismissed the complaint. Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant claimed that landlord filed a fraudulent rent registration in 2006 and that his initial rent should have been $663 instead of $1,150. But tenant's base date rent was set by using the rent charged under the lease in effect on the base date, May 14, 2006, not the April 1, 2006, rent listed in the annual rent registration. Under the ETPR, the DHCR can't look at rent history records dating back more than four years from the filing date of an overcharge complaint. The rent charged on the base date was tenant's vacancy lease rent of $1,150.

Gendelman: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. YL910052RT (6/29/11) [2-pg. doc.]