Tenant Waited Too Long to Claim Rent-Control Status

In 2010, tenant asked the DHCR to determine her status. She claimed that she was incorrectly registered as rent stabilized. Tenant said that she was born in the apartment in 1966 and that her parents were rent-controlled tenants of the apartment until they moved out in 1996. Tenant claimed that she then became rent controlled as a remaining family member. Landlord claimed that he bought the building in 1996, that the apartment was registered then as rent stabilized, and that since then he had given tenant rent-stabilized renewal leases and registered the apartment as rent stabilized annually without complaint from tenant. The DRA ruled for tenant. Landlord appealed and won. Although no report of statutory decontrol was ever filed for the apartment, tenant's parents had signed rent-stabilized renewal leases since at least 1984. Tenant herself had signed rent-stabilized leases from 1997 to 2011. The rent for the five-room rent-stabilized apartment also was relatively low, at $136 in 1985 and $475 in 2009. Since neither tenant nor her parents raised a timely complaint about her rent-regulated status, they had waived their right to claim that they were rent controlled.

Orellana: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. ZH210061RO (5/4/12) [4-pg. doc.]