Failure to Register Apartment in the Past Wasn’t Proof of Fraud

Rent-stabilized tenant complained of rent overcharge. The DRA ruled for tenant and ordered landlord to refund $7,640, including triple damages. Tenant’s initial 2010 rent was the legal regulated rent because it was less than landlord could have charged. But landlord collected an overcharge when tenant’s lease was renewed. Tenant appealed, claiming fraud by landlord. The DHCR ruled against tenant. There was no fraudulent scheme to deregulate the apartment and no reason to look back more than four years. Landlord’s failure to register the apartment from 1984 to 2006 wasn’t proof of fraud. Landlord did register the apartment beginning in 2007, five years before tenant filed his overcharge complaint and a year before the base rent date applicable to tenant’s complaint. Landlord’s failure to provide the base date lease also didn’t prove fraud. Landlord had been unable to obtain all prior leases from prior landlord but did produce the lease in effect before the base date. The DRA properly relied on that lease to establish the base date rent. Tenant’s rent-stabilized rent of $1,550 also wasn’t a deregulated rent. The DHCR corrected a calculation error by the DRA that increased the refund due to $8,270.

Goldstein: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. CX410023RT (5/19/15) [9-pg. doc.]