Tenant Questions Apartment’s Deregulation

Landlord sued to evict tenant, claiming that she was unregulated. Tenant claimed that she was rent stabilized. The court granted landlord’s request to strike this defense and denied tenant’s request for pretrial questioning and document production. Tenant appealed, and her claim was reinstated. There were several issues requiring more fact-finding, including whether the apartment was exempt from rent stabilization due to a high-rent vacancy that occurred in 2001 and whether landlord’s apartment improvement expenses in the year before the high-rent vacancy justified the increase in rent to over $2,000. Events beyond the four-year time limit for rent overcharge claims may be considered to determine whether the apartment is regulated.

AIMCO 322 East 61st Street, LLC v. Brosius: 2016 NY Slip Op 25374, 2015 WL 7039052 (App. T. 1 Dept.; 11/12/15; Schoenfeld, JP, Shulman, Hunter Jr., JJ)