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Absent Super

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

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Absent Super

Postby marctheo523 » Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:04 pm

I was wondering what the rule is for the Super in the building. Our super was living 7 miles away for 6 years. Isn't that illegal?

Also, how many units can each Super have? If there are more than 65 units shouldnt there be a second super on premises?

Thanks!
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Re: Absent Super

Postby TenantNet » Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:23 pm

See this section of the NYC Housing Maintenance Code:
http://tenant.net/Other_Laws/HMC/sub2/art13.html

The number of employees actually employed (not necessarily required) usually depends on the number of units, and whether the building is considered luxury or not. You could have one super, and a porter or handyman. But usually there has to be at least one person.
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Re: Absent Super

Postby BubbaJoe123 » Fri Jun 02, 2017 9:51 am

marctheo523 wrote:I was wondering what the rule is for the Super in the building. Our super was living 7 miles away for 6 years. Isn't that illegal?

Also, how many units can each Super have? If there are more than 65 units shouldnt there be a second super on premises?

Thanks!


As I read the rules:

1. If there are 9 or more units, there must be a janitor/super who lives onsite or within 200 feet/1 block of the location.
2. In addition, the landlord is required to have at least one janitor for every 65 units.

I don't believe that the second requirement also requires there to be one person living onsite for every 65 units, just that there be one person on staff for every 65 units.

As an example, if a building had 100 units, there would need to be one person living onsite, and at least one other person on staff, but the second person wouldn't necessarily need to live onsite.

That's certainly my experience - I've lived in buildings with 200+ apartments, and there definitely weren't 4 staffers living in the building.
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Re: Absent Super

Postby TenantNet » Fri Jun 02, 2017 10:10 am

The rules are somewhat ambiguous on points like that. It would really depend on a judge if the question went to court.

Also - very important - the number of required employees can depend on the history of the building and DHCR. For example, if a 100 unit building had 4 employees (say 1 super and three porter/janitorial) and their schedules were staggered so the building was covered by an on-site and on-duty/awake person on duty 24 hours and on weekends, then while that may be over the HPD-mandated minimum, that establishes a level of required services under rent stabilization.

In some buildings the overnight shift might be a doorman who could call the actual sleeping super in the event of an immediate problem.

So, in many cases, it depends.
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