DHCR Rejects Landlord's Application to Modify Intercom Service

Landlord applied to the DHCR for permission to modify services after substituting a new telephone access system for the old bell/buzzer intercom system. The DRA ruled against landlord based on tenant complaints. Tenants claimed that the new intercom system knocked them off the Internet when using home computers, disconnected calls on hold when they answered the bell, worked sporadically only on the side door and not on the front door, that voices couldn't be heard, and that they couldn't buzz in their guests. Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord claimed that only a few tenants complained and that any technological issues were unrelated to the intercom. The DHCR rejected these arguments. DHCR policy required a number of conditions be met for approval of telephone-based intercom service given changing technology. These were: Intercom service must be supplied to every apartment; tenants must continue to have a choice of telecommunications company that provided service; each apartment must have touch-tone service and a landline phone; rents would be permanently reduced by $15 per month to offset the cost of basic telephone service; and tenants without landlines must be compensated by landlord if the service required any new phone installation costs. Landlord had failed to address tenant complaints about problems with the new system.

260 Convent Avenue: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. VG430024RO (1/11/12) [5-pg. doc.]