Landlord Illegally Deregulated Harlem Apartments, Lawsuit Claims

HARLEM, NY — A Harlem landlord is being accused of benefiting from tax incentives for keeping apartments rent stabilized while simultaneously deregulating the homes, according to a class action lawsuit filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

An investigation by the Housing Rights Initiative led to the class action lawsuit on behalf of the tenants of 230 West 147th Street — a six-story apartment building located between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Junior boulevards. The building's owner, an entity called Remik Holdings LLC allegedly illegally deregulated homes inside the building while benefiting from the J-51 tax break program, according to the lawsuit.

Of 100 apartment units in the West 147th Street building, only eight were registered as rent stabilized before the expiration of the tax benefit. The J-51 program allows landlords to conduct repairs and improvements in a building and receive a tax break on the condition that 100 percent of the building's units are rent stabilized.

The lawsuit claims that landlords told tenants moving into the building that their apartments were not subject to rent stabilization and did not given rent stabilization or J-51 riders to sign. The landlords are also accused of hiking rents higher than legally allowed in order to artificially inflate rents and deregulate units.

"Upon information and belief, [the landlords] devised a scheme to unlawfully deregulate apartments in the Subject Building, and charge tenants inflated rents by advertising to tenants of the Subject Building and to the general public that its apartments available to rent were deregulated, while simultaneously enjoying J-51 tax benefits that reduced its real estate taxes," the lawsuit claims.

The building started receiving the J-51 tax break in 2007 and continues to receive it to the present day, according to the lawsuit. The class action lawsuit is asking the court to issue an order declaring the building's current tenants as the legal, rent-stabilized tenants of their apartments and to reduce rents to the correct, legal regulated rent. Tenants are also asking for damages for the overcharged rents going back four years.

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