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Attorney General Letitia James recently announced a lawsuit against a New York City property manager and his company for fraud, unjust enrichment, and repeatedly violating rent stabilization laws through manipulation of individual apartment improvements (IAIs). The manager worked for many years at a property management company that manages approximately 2,500 apartments throughout New York City.
Intro. 1423, a bill to limit the amount a renter could pay a broker for its services, was initially introduced in February. Specifically, the bill mandates that residential brokers would be “prevented from collecting fees from prospective tenants that are above the value of one month’s rent.”
The city’s Department of Investigation (DOI) found miscalculations that affected the official residential eviction totals for 2018, a spokesperson for the agency said, and the figures are likely to be revised upwards. The DOI discovered that two city marshals made errors while totaling their annual eviction figures and counted evictions for only three out of the 12 months.
In a preliminary vote on May 7, the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) recommended increasing rent for rent-stabilized apartment buildings. The board’s preliminary vote inside The Great Hall at Cooper Union in the East Village called for:
Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that Louise Carroll will serve as the next Commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Carroll will work closely with the new Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants to create strategies to hold bad landlords accountable.
In a recent op-ed in the New York Daily News, Mayor de Blasio called on Albany to protect the over two million New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments. The mayor outlined his support for several proposed Albany legislative policies that will close loopholes that predatory landlords depend on to flip rent-stabilized apartments to the market rate.
State lawmakers recently passed the Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which amends the state’s Penal Law to lower the legal bar to prove harassment against owners. Previously, criminal charges couldn’t be pursued unless prosecutors could prove that the offending owner intended to push tenants out of their homes and that those residents incurred physical harm due to the property owner’s deliberate actions.
The current rent law expires in June and major reforms to New York’s rent regulations are on Democratic lawmakers’ agenda now that they control the entire state Legislature. Proposed changes to the rent laws are expected to make it harder for landlords to raise rents on regulated apartments.
On Jan. 10, at the State of the City, Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order establishing the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, which will lead comprehensive outreach on anti-harassment initiatives and be the central point of contact for tenant advocates. The mayor recently appointed Jackie Bray as director of the new office.
An East Village owner is asking a bankruptcy court to terminate tenants’ leases on the grounds that a proposed $8.2 million sale of the building can’t go through while the rent-stabilized leases are in place. The building has 16 rent-stabilized units and eight tenants at the building have been withholding rent for months over a range of problems, including lack of heat, failure to make necessary repairs, and rodents. The building currently has 68 outstanding...
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