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Roomate Rent

NYC Rent Regulation: Rent Control/Rent Stabilized, DHCR Practice/Procedures

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Roomate Rent

Postby bjcc84 » Sat May 20, 2017 11:37 am

Can a roommate pay the bulk of the rent in a rent stabilized apartment if this is agreed to in writing? It would be arranged this way to allow for him to move in without having to sublet for the six months he would be a roommate. I will be away much of the time but will have full access to the apartment and would contribute to the rent the months he is in apt.

Thanks,
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Re: Roomate Rent

Postby TenantNet » Sat May 20, 2017 12:22 pm

You do not want to do that as you (assuming you're the tenant on the lease and the roommate is not on the lease) could face substantial penalties and even an effort by the LL to evict you.

According to DHCR:

In a rent stabilized apartment, the rent collected from the roommate cannot exceed their proportionate share of the apartment. For example, one tenant named on a lease can take in one roommate and the roommate can be charged no more than half of the legal rent. The roommate can be advised to file a complaint of rent overcharge with DHCR if they were charged in excess of that proportionate share.


As to any arrangement where you are away, but have access ... well you can call it whatever you want, but any actual arrangement is driven by the facts, not some story you come up with.

In our opinion, if you are away 29 nights a month, and come back and stay there one night, then that's still a sublet.

Now, if this person is and has been a real roommate for some time - I would say a year or more - and THEN you go away for several months, I would think he's still a roommate and not a sublet.

The rules for what you can charge a sublet are different.

What you can realistically do depends on many factors, such as the length of the arrangement, how nosy your super or neighbors are (some tenants pay off a super to look the other way), how litigious the LL is and so on. If the LL is really trying to catch you at something, then I would be much more careful.
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