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An Upper Manhattan apartment renter claiming rent-overcharge damages tied to claims that his apartment had been wrongfully deregulated should not have been granted rent-overcharge summary judgment because he never presented evidence that he was overcharged during the four years before he filed suit, a state appeals court has ruled.

An Appellate Division, First Department panel has decided that the renter, Odilson Fuentes, cannot recover at summary judgment for rent overcharges, despite a correct lower-court ruling that he was entitled to a rent-stabilized apartment, because “he failed to present evidence of rent overcharge [during the] four years prior to the commencement of [his] lawsuit in January 2014.”

“While rental history may be examined beyond [the] four years [before the bringing of a lawsuit] to determine rent-stabilized status, it may not be used for the purpose of calculating an overcharge,” the unanimous panel wrote, citing East W. Renovating v. New York State Div. of Hous. & Community Renewal, 16 A.D.3d 166.

“Rent overcharge claims are generally subject to a four-year statute of limitations,” the panel of Justices John Sweeny, Judith Gische, Troy Webber, Marcy Kahn and Peter Moulton wrote.

The justices’ July 30 ruling partially reversed a 2017 decision from Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ellen Coin, who had granted Fuentes partial summary judgment on his claim for rent overcharge. (The justices affirmed Coin’s decision that Fuentes was entitled to a rent-stabilized lease for the apartment.)

Fuentes, who moved into the apartment on West 183rd Street in 2010, had claimed both money damages and punitive damages for the alleged overcharges, including interest, as well as his attorney fees under Real Property Law §234 and the Rent Stabilization Law and Code, the justices said.

They further explained in their opinion that parties in rent overcharge actions “may look back farther than four years [before filing suit], where there is evidence of fraudulent conduct on the part of the landlord,” but that in Fuentes’ suit he had “failed to set forth sufficient indicia of fraud to warrant consideration of the rental history beyond the four-year statutory period from [the] January 2014” filing date.

“The [lower] court improperly concluded that defendant [Kwik Realty’s] failure to maintain any records of the alleged individual apartment improvements (IAIs) and its failure to provide notices under the Rent Stabilization Code relating to the last legal, regulated rent, were evidence of ‘an attempt to circumvent the Rent Stabilization Law,’’” the justices said.

They added, “While [Kwik Realty] failed to provide notices, [Kwik] registered the apartment with DHCR [the Division of Housing and Community Renewal]. And, although, [Kwik] concededly failed to maintain records of the alleged IAIs, there is no requirement under the [relevant] statute that such records be maintained indefinitely.”

Niles Welikson of Horing Welikson & Rosen, along with member Richard Walsh, represented Kwik Realty in the appeal.

Reached by phone Thursday, Walsh said that the lower court had “incorrectly granted summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff on the rent overcharge issue.”

“We think the [First Department] decision was correct because there was no evidence of a rent overcharge,” he added.

Matthew Chachere, an attorney with the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corp. Legal Services, represented Fuentes. He could not be reached for comment.