Are you being illegally overcharged for rent by your landlord?

Are you being illegally overcharged for rent by your landlord?

Time to Read:

4 min

QUIZ

Should I move to Miami?

Find out if Miami is the right city for you to move

Check it out

NYC is very expensive! It’s easy to be taken advantage of, so we collaborated with our Super Neighbor, Brandon McKenzie, to help you KNOW YOUR RIGHTS and give you some helpful tips and tricks. Brandon is an attorney at Moss & Moss LLP, where he handles complex real estate litigation matters, and Co-Founder of ListAcross, a one-stop-shop for selling your stuff across peer-to-peer marketplaces (launching soon!).

Are you being illegally overcharged for rent by your landlord?

In New York, for market apartments, your landlord can charge whatever the market will bear.

Bummer.

But not all apartments are market rate! Many apartments in New York are subject to rent regulation. There are only about 16,000 rent controlled apartments left in New York, so odds are, you’re probably not in one of those.

There are, however, about 1,000,000 rent stabilized apartments in the City.

You can find stabilized apartments in buildings with six (6) or more units built between 1947 and 1973 and in certain buildings with three or more units built or substantially renovated after 1974 that have benefited from certain tax incentives, like the 421-a property tax exemption or the J-51 tax incentive.

If you live in a rent stabilized apartment, the Rent Guidelines Board votes each year on how much your rent can be raised for the following year. This year saw a bigger increase than most years. For rent stabilized renewal leases beginning between October 1, 2022 through September 30, 2023, your landlord can increase your rent on a one-year lease by 3.25% and on a two-year lease by 5%. If you’re in a rent stabilized apartment, your landlord is supposed to provide you with a rent stabilized lease, but some unscrupulous landlords use regular leases in stabilized units with new tenants to try to avoid the rent increase limits (spoiler alert, that’s not legal).

Think you might be a victim of rent overcharges?

Head over to this website where you can submit two inquiries to the NYC Department of Homes and Community Renewal (“DHCR”).

The first inquiry is “Am I rent stabilized?” DHCR should have records on rent stabilization, and they might be able to tell you.

The second inquiry is for your apartment’s rent history. DHCR will typically only send that information to a tenant or an owner. Historically, DHCR would mail the results to the apartment in question, so keep an eye on your mailbox.

Results can take several weeks to process. Once you have your rent history, go through it to see what past tenants paid and what each rent increase looked like.

If there’s a history of steady bumps of 1-3% followed by some large, sudden, inexplicable increases, you might be getting overcharged, as long as the apartment was not subject to deregulation, typically before 2019. The penalty to a landlord for a rent overcharge is the amount collected above the legal rent, plus either accrued interest or treble (3X) damages.

DHCR has some fun fact sheets like this one on how to claw back those overcharges from landlords. You can also sue your landlord for overcharges from the past four years, and if a court finds that your landlord acted wilfully, you may be entitled to 3X the overcharge refund on rents paid two years before your claim.

The court can only look back four years, so if an overcharge is older than that, you might be out of luck. Typically, the sooner you file your lawsuit, the better.

Good luck out there kiddos!

QUIZ

Should I move to Miami?

Find out if Miami is the right city for you to move

Check it out

🙌  80,000+ residents joined

Check if there's OneRoof in your building

Check

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Sanders

Paul Sanders is an author, coach, and founder of GetTheFriendsYouWant.com. He has been writing and coaching on loneliness, shyness, social skills, conversation, friendship, and social life since 2011. He helped thousands of people change their social lives.

Paul is the author of the widely distributed eBook, Get The Friends You Want, as well as various audio and video training courses, and live seminars. Paul has been featured in various podcasts, and interviews.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandon McKenzie

Brandon is an attorney at Moss & Moss LLP, where he handles complex real estate litigation matters, and Co-Founder of ListAcross, a one-stop-shop for selling your stuff across peer-to-peer marketplaces (launching soon!).

All of the above is provided for informational purposes only and is not legal advice, nor should it be construed as such. If you’d like to get in touch with Brandon, drop him a note at bmckenzie@mossandmoss.com. Also check out ListAcross, Brandon’s startup (launching soon!) to help you sell your stuff across multiple peer-to-peer marketplaces like Facebook, eBay, Etsy, and more!

🚀 Start a chat in my building

🚀 Start a chat

Get started

Start your building community

Join the waitlist to be connected with your neighbors

Get notified via SMS once the chat is set up in your building👇🏻
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

This is only used to verify you live there.

🙌  80,000+ residents joined OneRoof communities in their building. Don't miss out.

Request received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Thank you!
We'll notify you once we set up the chat in your building.

In the meantime if you have any questions you can send us an email at support@oneroofapp.com or call us at (276) 242-3663
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.