Is my apartment a new unit?

[blahbeblue]

Hi folks,

I live in a newly renovated unit in an old building in Brooklyn. The landlord used the space as an office prior to renovations in 2021. Our unit, "G5A1," as illustrated on our lease, is rent stabilized. However, things get a little weird:

-Quickly realize that the door and our mailbox and utilities each indicate apartment G5A. All of the rest of the units in the building are 3 letters long.

-Our "new unit" is actually an old unit that was renovated and likely doubled in size. G5A used to be a 1 bedroom. We live in a 2 bedroom in an expanded footprint.

-The rent on our unit is $3700 – a lot more than the stabilized tenants around us in the building.

So, we requested the rent history for apartment G5A. It comes to us because all mail for G5A comes to us – there is no G5A1 mailbox.

Can someone help me make sense of what happened? Is this legitimate? If we were to try to ask the landlord to return an overcharge, what amount should the legal rent be?

Interestingly, I found a Dept of Buildings permit for the renovation work on our building. It shows "renovations to unit G5A and G5B." No indication of G5A1.

Rent history below:
https://imgur.com/a/YAQf1ds

[TenantNet]

Sorry for the delay in responding - we're backed up at the moment.

The term "renovated" can mean a number of different things ... new floors, new kitchen cabinets and appliances, new windows, etc. You always need to define what the facts are.

From a rent stab perspective, a "new units" means when they alter the outer walls of a unit. They can combine two or more units ("frankensteining"), take space from another apartment, take space from a hallway, etc.

DHCR will say the new unit is not the same as the old unit, so the old unit's rent history no longer applies. That means rents and services. It's one of the few ways left to deregulate, although there is a bill pending in Albany that might eliminate that as well.

Combining units raises a number of questions and concerns:

1. Combining units requires an Alteration permit from NYC Buildings. An ALT permits - in some cases - requires a Certificate of No Harassment from HPD. That gets murky and HPD is not your friend (none of the agencies are).

2. All units, old and new, require two means of egress (often the door to the hallway, stairs in the hallways and fire escapes, but some taller buildings allow sprinkler systems.

But if they took space from a public hallway, then that could have narrowed the hallway and that in itself might have been illegal.

3. Change of use. Whether its combining two residential units, or going from commercial to residential space, they would likely need a Certificate of Occupancy (CO), for all building from 1939 or if altered. If they don't have a current amended CO, then they might be in non-compliance. This happens a lot. In court a tenant might be able to assert this prevents a LL from collecting rent. See https://propertyclub.nyc/article/certif ... upancy-nyc (although I would do a lot more research and get legal advice before taking that step). I would also look into i-cards from the HPD web site.

FYI, you can get copies of any CO's a building might have from the NYC DOB BIS web site.

https://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bsqpm01.jsp
Pick "A" and find your building
Close to the top, click "View Certificates of Occupancy"

They should list, floor-by-floor the allowed use. Check historical COs to see if prior commercial use was permitted.

Then there is zoning. That lays out areas of the city where buildings may be used for residential, commercial or manufacturing (or a mix). In some districts, retail might be allowed on the ground floor. You might dind doctors or dentists on the second floor, but about that it should be all residential, not commercial. (BTY, I'm not talking lofts, which are different animals).

The designation of the unit - that might be a US Post Office thing. I really don't know who watches over that. It would not be on the CO on a unit-by-unit basis.

I would also dig deeper and try to get copies of permits and plans for the renovation you found. You might have to go to the DOB and they might fight you on that.