Four-Year Rule Applies Even If No RR-1 Delivered

Tenant filed a fair market rent appeal on Dec. 19, 2007, claiming that the initial rent-stabilized rent for the apartment was too high. The DRA ruled against tenant. All rent increases collected by landlord after Dec. 19, 2003, the base rent date, were legal. Whether the apartment's initial stabilized rent was a fair market rent was no longer an issue, because no complaint was filed within four years after this rent was set.
Tenant appealed, claimed that the four-year rule didn't apply because tenant never received an RR-1 form from landlord advising him of his right to challenge the rent by way of a fair market rent appeal. Tenant also claimed that landlord fraudulently represented to him that prior tenant had paid $1,933 in rent, that the Rent Stabilization Rider attached to tenant's lease didn't indicate prior tenant's rent, and that landlord didn't register tenant's apartment until more than two years after tenant moved in. The DHCR ruled against tenant. Rent Stabilization Code Section 2522.3(c)(2) requires a fair market rent appeal to be filed within four years after an apartment is decontrolled. That fact that tenant wasn't served with an RR-1 form doesn't extend the four-year period. Tenant also didn't raise his fraud claims before the DRA and can't do so for the first time in his PAR. And, in any event, tenant stated no claim that would permit examining rental events occurring more than four years before the base rent date.

Borden: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. WB210032RT (12/10/08) [2-pg. doc.]