DHCR Has No Authority to Rule on Tenant's Security Deposit Dispute with Landlord

Rent-stabilized tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge in 2020. Tenant had lived in the apartment since 1972 and claimed that landlord: (1) failed to comply with a DHCR rent reduction order issued in 2018; (2) refused to reconcile tenant's security deposit account; and (3) owed tenant interest on her security deposit. Landlord had ignored tenant's repeated requests to transfer the security deposit from the account of tenant's mother (who was the prior tenant) to an account in tenant's name. Tenant also claimed that an MCI application by landlord misrepresented the room count for tenant's apartment as five when it should be four.

The DRA ruled for tenant in part. Landlord owed tenant a refund totaling $2,533 with triple damages for an overcharge collected between November 2017 and December 2019 while a DHCR rent reduction order was in effect. 

Tenant appealed for various reasons and lost. The DRA properly applied triple damages to excess rent collected by the landlord. Tenant couldn't challenge the room count already determined in a separate 2015 DHCR decision concerning landlord's MCI application. Tenant also argued that landlord failed to date his signature on the base date lease for the apartment, but that didn't invalidate the lease. Whether landlord's registration of tenant's apartment should have included a patio as a required service wasn't relevant to tenant's rent overcharge complaint. Tenant's 1992 MCI rent increase wasn't subject to expiration. And any dispute concerning tenant's security deposit must be brought before the Consumer Frauds Bureau of the NY Attorney General's office.

Ford: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. MU410018RT (3/16/25)[3-pg. document]