Landlords in New York City are now registering tens of thousands more rent-regulated apartments than they have in recent years. This move in rent stabilization is the first step in New York enforcing a law Governor Kathy Hochul signed last year which created new heavy penalties for landlords failing to file with the state.
New York City landlords have now registered tens of thousands of rent-regulated apartments, much more than they have in recent years. This move comes as New York takes initial steps to enforce a law from Governor Kathy Hochul which was signed last year. This law created heavy new penalties for failing to file with the state.
The law was also passed after New York City publication, THE CITY, exposed a major decline in the amount of registered rent-stabilized apartments. The exposé also revealed situations where landlords removed apartments from the registry and leased them out at market-rate rent pricing without state approval.
Alyssa Katz, writer for THE CITY, recently wrote that the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) has warned NYC landlords that missed a July 31st registration deadline will face fines of $500 per month per apartment they neglected to register. Previously the fine was a one-time $10 surcharge that wasn’t often enforced, Katz wrote.
“So far in the 2024 cycle about 919,500 apartments, most of them in New York City, have had registrations submitted to the state by their owners. That’s up from between 750,000 and 800,000 on-time registrations in recent years.”
The DHCR is now sending around 11,300 official notices to building owners who missed the July deadline. The notice will emphasize the new fines for failing to record and register their rent-regulated apartments.
“Although these registration numbers are preliminary, they far exceed recent historical trends and are a testament to both the work of the Office of Rent Administration and the Governor and Legislature for strengthening penalties on building owners who fail to comply,” said Charni Sochet, a spokesperson for DHCR, according to THE CITY.
“We expect registrations will continue to increase in time as building owners respond to the Notices of Delinquency.”
“[The new figures show] 99% of rent-stabilized property owners have complied promptly with the new registration regulations,” said Michael Johnson, a spokesperson for the landlord association Community Housing Improvement Program.
“We are certain the remaining 1% of cases will be resolved quickly. We know from member feedback that some delinquent notices were sent in error, citing delinquencies for units that don’t exist. We suspect those discrepancies will be resolved with DHCR.”
Individual apartment rent histories are available to both landlords and their tenants, otherwise the state keeps the records and statistics protected. THE CITY was able to compile data and create their exposé by using JustFix’s tenant technology project.
The project collects information from property tax bills that the New York City Department of Finance publishes online.
These bills also list the specific amount of rent-regulated units in every building. THE CITY utilized this data to gain a better understanding of the decrease in New York’s rent-stabilized apartments. This analysis followed the state legislature’s 2019 passage of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act.
THE CITY then published the data mapped out, showing the apartments that had disappeared from the official registrations.
Linda Rosenthal, a Manhattan Assembly member on the Upper West Side, stated that THE CITY’s data allowed her to get a handle on this problem’s potential scope.
“I have been harping with DHCR on this for years,” said Rosenthal.
“Enforcing an expectation on all landlords that they register their apartments in the first place puts owners on notice that they’re being watched,” wrote Katz.
“If this [new law] works, maybe it solves the problem,” Rosenthal said.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
