Tenant's Class B SRO Unit Was Hotel Stabilized

Tenant complained of rent overcharge. The DRO ruled for tenant and ordered landlord to refund $2,800, including triple damages. The apartment was an SRO unit and the DRO found that it was hotel stabilized. Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord claimed that tenant’s unit was an apartment subject to normal rent stabilization guideline increases. But the building’s 1952 Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) listed the building as a Class B hotel. A later 2012 C of O indicated that the building contained 80 residential hotel rooms. There was no proof that the building was ever classified as an apartment building. Under Hotel Order #41, where fewer than 85 percent of a building’s units were occupied by permanent hotel-stabilized or -controlled tenants, the applicable guideline increase is zero percent.

Housing and Services, Inc.: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. DW410033RO (3/22/16) [4-pg. doc.]