Prior Registered Rent Was More Than Rent Charged to Tenant

Landlord sued to evict hotel-stabilized tenant for nonpayment of rent. Tenant claimed rent overcharge. The court ruled for landlord without a trial. Tenant appealed and lost. Tenant stopped paying rent in October 2011 and owed landlord $39,000 in back rent. The base date for determining any overcharge was October 2009, four years before tenant made that claim. The DHCR rent registration records showed that the unit was registered as temporarily exempt from 2006 to 2010 based on the then-permissible "SRO/Transient" occupancy exemption. Rent Stabilization Code Section 526.1(a)(3)(iii), as amended, provides that if a unit is vacant or temporarily exempt on the base date, the legal regulated rent is the prior legal regulated rent plus any authorized increases and adjustments. The lower court properly found that the prior legal regulated rent in 2005 was $1,250 per month. Since this amount was greater than the $1,050 per month paid by tenant, there was no overcharge. Tenant also raised no triable issue as to fraud by landlord in setting the regulated rents over the years that would warrant consideration of the rent history beyond the four-year base date.

Esplanade 94 LLC v. Pavella: 2017 NY Slip Op 27338, 2017 WL 4623632 (App. T. 1 Dept.; 10/16/17; Lowe III, PJ, Shulman, Gonzalez, JJ)