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I live in a RS apartment and I didn't know-Please help me

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

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I live in a RS apartment and I didn't know-Please help me

Postby missL48 » Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:22 pm

Hi Everyone!

I live in a 2 bedroom apartment in Hells Kitchen since September 1st, 2014. I didn't know what RS apartment is and I was paying $2000 for 3 years. The landlord was trying to sell my building for a long time because of all the problems it had (we didn't have gas for two years and my celling is crumbling). The management company was run by my friend and her brother. in January I gave them 12 checks for the year 2017 though I noticed around March that the checks weren't being deposited. When I asked my friend she said that I can take back the checks because they are selling the building and that for now I will not need to pay rent and she even tried to give them back to me one time but I didn't take them. This whole situation seemed fishy to me so I asked another friend's husband who works in real estate and he told me that I need to get the history of my apt. Long story short... I got the History of the apartment and the last recorded rent is 1419.21 in 2014 and apparently the landlord never even registered me as living in the apartment so there is no record of me living there. Nevertheless, I was never provided with any rider that demonstrated the calculation on how they determined my rent from the last recorded rent. I was threatened that if I will not leave the apartment then the new owner will come in and raise my rent to $2600 and that I should leave the apartment. The landlord still till this day didn't deposit my checks although I did submit and overcharge claim against him and he replied with all this calculations that he supposedly did now which increase the rent to $1955. He tried to register the apartment now and report improvements and other b/s. Apparently I am not the only one that is suing him there are a few other tenants who sued him and won for the same exact thing and another two tenants are suing him now. He is a professional scammer but I am scared that he will get away with it. Now I received a rent demand notice from him even though the overcharge claim wasn't finalized yet and he's trying to evict me based on non payment which is exactly why he didn't deposit my checks.

What should I do? I am not even registered in the apartment though I do have a lease and was never provided with the rider.
Last edited by missL48 on Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
missL48
 
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Re: I live in a RS apartment and I didn't know-Please help m

Postby TenantNet » Tue Oct 17, 2017 6:53 pm

This is very hard to follow as you're jumping all over the place.

First, you say you have a lease. Is it a rent stab lease? How do you know? Have you gotten renewal leases, and were they on official DHCR RTP-8 renewal forms?

What is the name of the old and new landlord (you can send that to us by Private Mail). Also if you don't mind, the address or street it's on (again, by private mail)

So let's start there.

But tell us, are you in court now? You say you got a rent demand; have they followed up with a Petition/Notice of Petition? And is it the old or new LL that is dong this?

Being registered with DHCR doesn't define your status or rights. What matters more is the lease. The DHCR rent history of registrations only show what the LL told DHCR, not what actually happened.

BTW, please do not use anything resembling your real name or email address as your user name. It's too easy to look it up. Would be better to change the user name.
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Re: I live in a RS apartment and I didn't know-Please help m

Postby TenantNet » Mon Nov 13, 2017 5:02 pm

We had to delete your last post. As we told you NOT to do, you included several items of personal information. NEVER EVER put personal info on a public forum. Better - as we told you - to put it in private mail. Please. Some questions you didn't answer.

We're not familiar with the attorney you mention. Appears he reps both landlords and tenants. We prefer attorneys that represent tenants and not landlords. Still, that's not a reflection on his ability.

I'm not even sure what your question is aside from "what should I do?" Has your attorney told you? It seems there might be a number of issues you could tackle. But the initial issue is getting the non-pay tossed. The apparent lack of required filings, i.e., registration, renewal leases, etc., and the fishy rent history, can probably impact any increase in rent. But without looking at the entire case, we can't be more specific. If you can establish problems in the rent history, one of your defenses should probably be that the rent demanded is not the legal rent.
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Information from TenantNet is from experienced non-attorney tenant
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