Rent Overcharge Resulted from Failure to Renew Lease and to Register Apartment

Rent-stabilized tenant complained to the DHCR of rent overcharge in January 2019. The DRA ruled for tenant and directed landlord to refund $4,006, including interest and triple damages. Landlord appealed and lost. The DRA correctly applied the four-year lookback period to tenant's complaint, which was in effect prior to enactment of HSTPA amendments to the rent stabilization law on June 14, 2019. The DRA also correctly froze the legal $524 base date rent from March 1, 2015, through Nov. 30, 2022, because the tenant was a month-to-month tenant without a lease during that time. Starting in April 2020, tenant's rent also was frozen because the apartment wasn't registered with the DHCR. And, while landlord filed the missing registrations in December 2023 before the DRA issued its order, tenant still had no renewal lease.  

Hawthorne Realty Corp.: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. MR91000rRO (11/19/24)[3-pg. document]