Did Landlord Fraudulently Deregulate Apartment?

Landlord sued to evict tenant for nonpayment of rent and asked the court to rule without a trial. The court ruled against landlord, finding that there were questions requiring a trial as to whether a fraudulent scheme to destabilize the apartment tainted the reliability of the base date rent. Landlord appealed and lost. Landlord had increased the 1997 rent of $1,551 to over $8,000 in later years, offered tenant a free-market lease in 2005 at a rent of $8,750 while landlord was receiving J-51 tax benefits for the building, and failed to file annual rent registrations for the first several years of that tenancy. For the first time on appeal, landlord claimed that a rent increase was warranted based individual apartment improvements or an undisclosed vacancy prior to the current tenancy. These claims couldn’t be considered for the first time on appeal and, if they were, only created additional issues of fact requiring trial. 

305 Riverside Corp. v. Sandlow: 54 Misc.3d 143(A), 2017 NY Slip Op 50215(U) (App. T. 1 Dept.; 2/17/17; Lowe III, PJ, Schoenfeld, Gonzalez, JJ)