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On June 29, in a 7 to 2 vote, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board decided to freeze rents for rent-stabilized tenants with one-year leases. This had never been done before in the board’s 46-year history. With the rent freeze, Mayor de Blasio delivered on a campaign promise to freeze one-year rents for a year, to make up for what he regarded as excessive rent increases approved in the past. In addition to the 0 percent increases for one-year leases, a 2 percent increase was agreed upon for rent-stabilized tenants with two-year leases.
You must file an Annual Apartment Registration application with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) for every rent-stabilized apartment you own by July 31, 2015. As in past years, the penalty for not filing is stiff: You can’t collect a rent increase—or even apply for one—until you file.
Local Law 84 of 2009 requires all large buildings in the city to annually measure and publically disclose their energy consumption. LL84 standardizes this process and captures information with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) free online benchmarking tool called Portfolio Manager.
On Jan. 23, 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 2014, the findings show that fuel prices generally decreased with three exceptions for interruptible gas systems-Con Edison, steam, and coal.
Rent-regulated apartments with a legal or maximum monthly rent that reach or exceed $2,500 as of May 1, 2015, may be petitioned for high-income rent deregulation this year. Current exceptions to luxury deregulation are buildings currently receiving J-51 or 421-a tax benefits and rent-controlled units in buildings that had previously received J-51 tax benefits.
Every Jan. 15, the NYC Department of Finance (DOF) sends to each owner a tentative assessment for the next fiscal year (2016, in the current case) conveying the market value of the lot, including improvements, the actual assessed value of the lot, and, most important, the value upon which the lot will be taxed for the upcoming fiscal year.
Local Law 43 and other state legislation regulating heating oils (No. 4 and No. 6) in New York City were put in place to address the public health hazard presented by these fuels. The rules affecting types of oil used in boilers were passed in April 2011 as part of an update to Mayor Bloomberg’s environmental agenda.
Q: Can I collect special rent increases for low-rent apartments that were issued under Rent Guidelines Board Order No. 41 and later challenged in court?
The Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) recently announced an increase in this year’s air-conditioner rent surcharge for owners who pay for electricity. It set the monthly surcharge at $36.63, up from $27.89 last year. This year’s 31 percent increase reflects an 8.5 percent increase in electrical costs and an 8.4 percent increase in the utilities component of the Price Index of Operating Costs as calculated by the Rent Guidelines Board and published in their research reports.
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