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The NYC Department of Finance (DOF) requires certain owners of residential properties to file the Real Property Income & Expense Statement (RPIE) every year. The DOF needs income and expense information each year to value your property accurately.
Local Law 84 (LL84) requires owners of large buildings to annually measure their energy and water consumption in a process called benchmarking. LL84 standardizes this process by requiring building owners to enter their annual energy and water use in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) online tool, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, and use the tool to submit data to the city. Building owners are subject to a penalty if usage data isn’t submitted by May 1 every year.
Rent-regulated apartments with a legal or maximum monthly rent that reaches or exceeds $2,700 as of May 1, 2016, may be petitioned for High Income Rent Deregulation this year. The Rent Act of 2015 amended the rent threshold for high-rent vacancy deregulation and high-income high-rent deregulation by raising the threshold from $2,500 to $2,700. The threshold will be adjusted annually by the one-year renewal lease guideline percentage increase issued the prior year by the Rent Guidelines Board.
On Jan. 22, the DHCR issued new fuel cost adjustment factors for rent-controlled apartments for the 2015 calendar year. The prices are based on a study of home heating oil prices provided by the NYC Rent Guidelines Board oil survey, a NYS Energy Research and Development Authority report, rate schedules for utility companies providing heating fuel, and a survey of retail coal vendors. During the calendar year for 2015, the findings show that fuel prices generally decreased, with three exceptions for: Gas—National Grid of New York, Gas—National Grid, and Electricity.
To avoid fines for snow and ice on your sidewalk this winter, be sure to follow a smart snow removal policy. Section 16-123 of the city’s Administrative Code requires you to remove snow and ice from the sidewalk in front of your building. Fines range from $100 to $150 for the first violation, up to $350 for a third violation within 12 months of the first. Here’s what to do after every snowfall.
Removal Deadlines
When you must shovel depends on when the snow stops falling.
The proliferation and popularity of short-term rental sites such as Airbnb have created vexing problems for owners. Due to these sites, it’s now quite simple, for example, for tenants to connect with travelers and attempt to sublet your apartments and make a hefty profit. Tenants can potentially turn your building into a hotel or hostel.
Again this year, the city’s Department of Sanitation (DOS) has a recycling program for Christmas trees and wreaths. It should make getting rid of trees and wreaths after the holiday much easier for you. Recycling trees and wreaths doesn’t just help the environment. It also helps eliminate the fire hazard posed by storing dried-out trees and wreaths in your building overnight or longer. Here’s how the program works.
The Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) recently announced a cut in this year’s air-conditioner rent surcharge for owners who pay for electricity. It set the monthly surcharge at $28.94, down from $36.63 last year. This year’s decrease reflects the 4.69 percent decrease in the price of electricity for electrical inclusion buildings as calculated by the Rent Guidelines Board’s 2015 Price Index of Operating Costs issued in April 2015.
You may have a tenant holding on to two rent-regulated apartments in your building, but he lives in only one of them. For example, a tenant may once have rented two apartments to meet the needs of a large family. But now the tenant’s children are grown and gone, and the tenant no longer uses the second apartment as a residence. Instead, the tenant stores personal items there or occasionally puts up out-of-town guests.
If you sign a vacancy lease with a tenant between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016, the new order issued on June 29 by the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB)—RGBO #47—lets you collect the vacancy increases permitted under the Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1997 (RRRA).
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