Good evening,
My question has to do with a rather unique and "landmark" case and bares some background before I ask it..
I am the tenant who came to Tenant Net in 2013, because I live in a 6 unit building that was down on public record as a 5 unit. The owner at the time wanted to vacate us all and I brought our case to DHCR and a vicious 5 year battle ensued. This year, the owner's PAR was denied and rent stabilization was reaffirmed (the owner may still bring an Article 78.)
All the tenants just received rent stabilized leases under their doors via FedEx from our newest owner (who just bought the building last year).
However..in 2013 we filed rent overcharge complaints due to the fact that the building has NEVER in all it's existence, been registered with DHCR. (Although a rent controlled tenant lived in the sixth apartment long ago.)
Having been held up by the landlord's appeals, the rent overcharge complaints are still being processed, so we really don't know what our legal rents are. Although the landlord lowered the rent in the rtp-8 lease, wouldn't signing it be legally binding us to the rent amount on that lease? Would signing his lease be us accepting that the amount he states in it is our legal rent?
For instance, if the lease says $1,200, how do we know DHCR can't go back 20 years and discover that our rent should actually be $500..Then what happens if we sign the $1,200 lease? I distinctly remember a case in which DHCR went back more than 4 years, in lieu of an owner's wrongdoing.
DHCR has no idea when the owner added the sixth apartment, but we met our criteria of evidence in proving that it has been six units for at least a decade. I know that once an owner presents a lease, we cannot ignore it, because that could be grounds for eviction.
I'm not sure what to do with the lease we've just been sent. As President of the Tenant's Association, I don't know how to advise the other tenants, either..