Tenant Is Rent Stabilized Since Apartment Is Part of HMD

Tenant complained that landlord refused to renew his rent-stabilized lease. Tenant moved into the building in 2003 and prior landlord had given him rent-stabilized renewal leases from 2008 through 2014. The apartment also was registered as rent stabilized between 1995 and 2011. New landlord claimed that the two-family dwelling wasn’t subject to rent stabilization. That building was behind a six-apartment building. The DRA ruled for tenant, finding that the two buildings were a “horizontal multiple dwelling” (HMD) and that tenant was rent stabilized.

Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord failed to appear for two scheduled DHCR inspections. So the DRA reasonably drew a negative inference that there were common building systems. The apartment also had been treated as rent stabilized for 20 years before landlord bought the building. Landlord also claimed that the building was substantially rehabilitated in 1993, but the apartment was part of an HMD and the front building apartments weren’t substantially rehabilitated. So, the apartment remained rent stabilized.

192 Kent Street LLC: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. EO210020RO (8/30/16) [5-pg. doc.]