DHCR Adopts Abusive Complaint Termination Policy

In recent weeks, the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal has been sending tenants who are appealing agency decisions letters asking them if there are any unresolved issues and whether they want to withdraw their appeals.

Alone, the inquiry seems harmless enough. The catch is, if a tenant does not return the DHCR letter within 20 days, their case will be terminated. This consequence is stated in the letter. Terminated cases will legalize overcharges and other landlord violations of tenants' rights.

The policy applies to tenants who have filed a Petition for Administrative Review (PAR) to appeal agency Rent Administrators' rejections of their complaints, such as overcharge, lack of services, lease disputes, and fair-market rent challenges.

Tenants who want to appeal an unfavorable determination must file a PAR with the DHCR administrative review unit, before they can take it to the courts by filing a claim with the New York State Supreme Court under Article 78, which few do. The PAR must be filed within 35 days of the Rent Administrator's order, or the tenant loses the right to any further appeal. The vast majority of pending PARs at DHCR and Article 78s in court are filed by landlords; most tenants do not understand the appeals process.

The new termination policy rises to the level of abuse for a number of reasons. Instead of putting the burden of reply on the landlord, who is the alleged transgressor, or living up to its responsibility to investigate and resolve tenants' complaints, the DHCR is in essence setting tenants up to have their cases thrown out for the mere procedural lapse of not returning a form confirming their intent to continue the complaint.

If one accepts the premise that DHCR has the right to terminate complaints by requiring tenants to reassert their intention to continue, tenants still have a number of valid excuses for not answering the proposed termination letter. The tenant may be away and not receive it. Or the tenant may have moved and be beyond the time in which the post office will forward mail. The tenant may believe that so much processing has already occurred and evidence submitted, that there is no need to state whether "there is still an active issue to be resolved." Many tenants will simply not understand what it that phrase means, or what "termination of the proceeding" means, since both are legalisms.

Since Governor Pataki took office in 1995, DHCR has adopted a number of policies clearly intended to undermine the rent laws' protections. The present termination policy was applied to cases at the Rent Administrator level, the first level, in early 1995. DHCR has also adopted a number of complex and legalistic filing requirements intended to discourage tenants from filing complaints. Rent-law administration was originally intended to give tenants remedies that are easy and quick, without requiring them to endure the difficulties and expense of hiring a lawyer and dealing with the courts.

Paul Roldan, DHCR's deputy commissioner for rent administration, did not return a call about the termination policy. Pataki's DHCR officials hae been crediting themselves with reducing the backlog of pending cases substantially, and there has been no criticism of the way the backlog is being cleared at tenants' expense from the Albany Democrats, who caved in to landlord demands to weaken the laws in both 1993 and 1997.

To protest this abusive termination policy, write to: Governor George E. Pataki, Executive Chambers, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224; or call him at: (212) 681-4580.