Tenant Had No Lease on Base Date

Rent-stabilized tenant complained of a rent overcharge. The DRA ruled for tenant and ordered landlord to refund $19,000, including triple damages. Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord claimed that tenant paid a preferential rent on the base date because she had refused to sign a renewal lease offered by prior landlord. Landlord also claimed that any overcharges resulted only from technical, calculation errors and there was no willful overcharge. But landlord didn’t deny that prior landlord sent tenant a letter in 2004 stating that tenant’s original lease expired in 1998, and enclosing copies of renewal leases for 2000, 2002, and 2004. Prior landlord asked tenant to sign all these renewal leases, and to continue paying preferential rent until the start date of the 2004 renewal lease. By this letter, prior landlord acknowledged that there was no written lease with tenant on the 2004 base date. So landlord couldn’t claim there was a preferential rent agreement. The DRA also couldn’t consider landlord’s claim that tenant had been offered but refused to execute a renewal lease that would have been in effect on the base date, since this involved rental history events occurring more than four years before tenant’s complaint was filed.

40 West 71st Street: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. XC410037RO (5/20/09) [3-pg. doc.]