Rent-stabilized tenant complained to the DHCR in 2024, claiming rent overcharge. The DRA ruled against tenant, finding no overcharge.   Tenant appealed and lost. A pre-base date lease between tenant and landlord for the apartment listed a rent of $1,400 per month and tenant paid no more than that rent amount up until 2025. So […]

Landlord sued to evict rent-stabilized tenant of a J-51 building in consolidated nonpayment and holdover proceedings. Tenant claimed rent overcharge and fraudulent deregulation of the apartment.   The court dismissed tenant’s defenses and counterclaims based on historical-rent, fraud, and registration-freeze theories on the merits, finding no overcharge under HSTPA rent calculation rules and no knowing […]

Landlord sued to evict tenant for nonpayment of rent in July 2024. Tenant answered and asked the court to rule without trial that she’d been overcharged since 2021 when she moved into the unit. The apartment had been registered at a legal regulated rent of $1,342.16 in 2016 but in 2017 was registered at a […]

Tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge in 2021. The DRA ruled for tenant and found that: (a) the base date rent was Sept. 14, 2015; (b) tenant was charged a preferential rent; (c) the lawful stabilized rent, if less than the legal regulated rent, becomes the amount of the rent actually charged; (d) […]

Tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge. The DRA ruled against tenant, finding that the apartment was high-rent vacancy-deregulated in 2017, which was prior to the 2018 base rent date of the proceeding and before tenant moved in.   Tenant appealed and the case was reopened. Review of the apartment’s rent history showed that […]

A Kingston tenant moved into an apartment on Feb. 15, 2015, and complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge in September 2022 after Kingston adopted ETPA coverage effective Aug. 1, 2022. The DRA ruled for tenant and found that: (a) the base rent date was Aug. 1, 2022; (b) based on the Kingston Fair Market […]

Rent-stabilized 421-a building tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge. The DRA ruled for tenant, finding a total overcharge of $15,194, which included triple damages and subtracted a prior refund of $2,441.   Tenant appealed and won in part. Tenant claimed that landlord charged late files for periods that it received Emergency Rental Assistant […]

While the DHCR’s Tenant Protection Unit (TPU) was conducting individual apartment improvement (IAI) audits for several apartments in landlord’s building, it filed a rent overcharge complaint with the DHCR for one apartment, claiming that the rent charged on March 31, 2017 was an overcharge.   The DRA applied a four-year lookback period to the overcharge […]

Tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge in 2022. Tenant claimed that, before she moved in, the apartment’s 2015 monthly rent of $837 had jumped in June 2016 to $2,000 with no proof of any individual apartment improvements (IAIs). The DRA ruled against tenant, finding that the base rent date was June 17, 2016; […]

Rent-stabilized tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge in 2023. Tenant challenged his monthly rent of $1,821 and claimed that he was charged illegal broker’s fees. The DRA ruled against tenant, finding that the Feb. 13, 2017 base date rent was $1,700 per month and that all subsequent rent increases were lawful.   Tenant […]