Landlord Mistakenly Registers Unit

A New York City resident asked the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) to determine her regulatory rent status. Her landlord had increased her rent and registered her unit as rent stabilized, but the DHCR rejected the registration.

The Division’s District Rent Administrator (DRA) said that the resident’s rent was set by HUD, therefore, the resident was not rent stabilized. The resident appealed and lost. The landlord has mistakenly registered the resident’s unit with the DHCR. Under NYS’s Rent Stabilization Code Section 2520.11(c), units in buildings aided by government insurance under any provision of the National Housing Act are exempt from stabilization. The resident’s unit was temporarily exempt from stabilization due to the landlord’s Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) contract with HUD. This contract gives Section 8 rent subsidies to units occupied by low-income households. Seven households in the building, including the resident, paid market rents set by HUD and received no rent subsidy because their incomes were too high. But since the federal rent assistance that the landlord received was project-based, rather than based on an individual household voucher, the DHCR could not reduce the resident’s HUD-approved contract rent.

n Mars: DHCR Adm. Rev. Docket No. XC110003RT (7/30/09)