Rent Demand Defective

LVT Number: #24373

(Decision submitted by David Hershey-Webb of the Manhattan law firm of Himmelstein McConnell Gribben Donoghue & Joseph, who represented the tenant.)

(Decision submitted by David Hershey-Webb of the Manhattan law firm of Himmelstein McConnell Gribben Donoghue & Joseph, who represented the tenant.)

Landlord sued to evict tenant for nonpayment of rent. Tenant was a plaintiff in the case of Roberts v. Tishman Speyer Properties LP and claimed that his apartment was improperly deregulated. In that case, still pending after New York's highest court ruled for tenants, the court had permitted landlord to offer renewal leases and implicitly to bring nonpayment proceedings based on landlord's calculation of the legal rent, without prejudice to claims by either side as to what the legal rent actually was. The court in Roberts had asked the DHCR for an advisory opinion, but the DHCR said that the rent for each apartment should be determined on a case-by-case basis without a general formula. Tenant claimed that landlord's rent demand was defective and asked the court to dismiss the case. The court ruled for tenant. Landlord's April 2011 rent demand sought $28,000. Later, in court papers, landlord claimed that the amount actually due at the time of the rent demand was only $1,470, and that the current amount due was $11,000. Landlord attached differing rent ledgers to the rent demand and nonpayment petition, and now also pointed to late annual rent registrations filed for the apartment. Given the dramatic change in the amount claimed due since the rent demand was delivered to tenant, tenant wasn't given a fair opportunity to respond to the rent demand and avoid litigation. Landlord must deliver a new rent demand if it wished to pursue its claim against tenant.

PCV/ST Owner LP v. Barr: Index No. 66980/2011 (Civ. Ct. NY; 9/10/12; Schneider, J)

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