Skip to main content
Fulltext search
FILTER RESULTS BY:
RECOMMENDED IN RENT
Moving to NYC after college? Here's how to find a rental apartment
RECOMMENDED IN BUY
How buying real estate in NYC is unlike anywhere else
RECOMMENDED IN SELL
A guide to using a no-fee renovation loan from a NYC real estate firm
RECOMMENDED IN IMPROVE
How to make your NYC renovation more pet-friendly
BEST REAL ESTATE WEBSITE!
National Association of Real Estate Editors
BEST REAL ESTATE WEBSITE! National Association of Real Estate Editors
Brick Underground
Social Links
follow:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flipboard
  • search
Brick Underground
☰ Brick Underground
Brick Underground
Brick Underground
☰
Brick Underground
  • Buy
    • Buy
    • The Market
    • Investing
    • New Construction + Condos
    • Affordable Housing
    • Co-ops
    • Negotiating + Financing
    • How to Buy in NYC Guide
    Haley and JP move to Prospect Lefferts Gardens
    New Construction + Condos
    From Prospect Heights to Prospect Lefferts Garden: We wanted three bedrooms so we could each have a home office
    An image of the top of a brick New York City apartment building, including its parapet.
    Design + Architecture
    Parapet inspections: What NYC boards and building owners need to know about Local Law 126
    one-bedroom condo at 702 Hancock Street
    The Search
    7 reasons why ground-floor apartments are desirable—instead of dealbreakers
  • Rent
    • Rent
    • Affordable Housing
    • Roommates + Landlords
    • The Market
    • The Search
    • How to Rent in NYC Guide
    Midtown Manhattan seen from Roosevelt Island tramway
    The Market
    Manhattan median rent spiked 6 percent to $4,500 in April
    Tenant protest outside Rent Guidelines Board preliminary vote
    Affordable Housing
    Rent Guidelines Board intends to raise stabilized rents for a fourth time
    A beautiful pink flowering cherry tree next to an old brick residential building with a fire escape in Astoria Queens New York during spring
    The Search
    A wet, hot, broker fee-free summer? A major change to rental broker fees is supposed to start in June
  • Sell
    • Sell
    • Staging + Open Houses
    • Negotiations + Closings
    • Getting Ready
    • How to Sell in NYC Guide
    Madison avenue and East 67th Street, Manhattan, New York City
    Sell
    Median sales price for Manhattan co-ops and condos jumps to $1,165,000
    new condo building and older co-op buildings in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
    Sell
    Brooklyn median price nears $1 million but the spring market is a question mark
    View of NYC condo buildings from New Jersey
    Sell
    Private listings: What NYC sellers and buyers need to know about the off-market controversy
  • Live
    • Live
    • Neighbors
    • Kids + Pets
    • Neighborhood Intel
    • Products + Test-drives
    • Troubleshooting
    FlatRate moving brick underground
    Live
    How to troubleshoot your move in advance
    Sponsored By flatrate
    big apple moving NYC
    Troubleshooting
    How can I save money when hiring a moving company in NYC?
    Sponsored By Big Apple Moving
    Houses and apartment buildings in Queens, NYC
    Troubleshooting
    Mayor Adams is bringing the tax lien sale back. Here’s how to get your property off the list
  • Improve
    • Improve
    • Small Spaces
    • Small Projects + DIY
    • Renovations
    • Design + Architecture
    • Products + Services
    • How to Renovate in NYC Guide
    An image of the top of a brick New York City apartment building, including its parapet.
    Design + Architecture
    Parapet inspections: What NYC boards and building owners need to know about Local Law 126
    solar panels on a small house roof
    Design + Architecture
    Simple Yet Powerful Steps To Turn Your Apartment Eco-Friendly
    Sponsored By Ecoflow
    This is a photograph of a street in the Upper West Side in NYC viewed from the Summit in Central Park through bare tree branches.
    Renovation
    Fewer buyers, steeper rents, and costlier renovations: How tariffs could impact NYC real estate
  • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards
    • Finance
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Property Management
    • Structure & Systems
    • Sustainability
    Burned and Boarded Up Windows
    When should your board hire a public adjuster?
    Manhattan GM
    What should we consider when renewing insurance for our building?
    Facade of NYC buildings
    How much is insurance on a NYC co-op or condo building?
  • Advertise
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsored Content
    • Experts
    FlatRate moving brick underground
    Live
    How to troubleshoot your move in advance
    Sponsored By flatrate
    Apartment buildings at Grand and Crosby streets in Soho, Manhattan
    Affordable Housing
    Ask Altagracia: My mom is moving out of our rent-stabilized apartment. How do I take over the lease?
    Sponsored By Outerbridge Law P.C.
    big apple moving NYC
    Troubleshooting
    How can I save money when hiring a moving company in NYC?
    Sponsored By Big Apple Moving
  • Brick Report
  • About Us
  • About Us
Email Address
Fulltext search
FILTER RESULTS BY:
New Main menu
  • Buy
    • Buy
    • The Market
    • Investing
    • New Construction + Condos
    • Affordable Housing
    • Co-ops
    • Negotiating + Financing
    • How to Buy in NYC Guide
  • Rent
    • Rent
    • Affordable Housing
    • Roommates + Landlords
    • The Market
    • The Search
    • How to Rent in NYC Guide
  • Sell
    • Sell
    • Staging + Open Houses
    • Negotiations + Closings
    • Getting Ready
    • How to Sell in NYC Guide
  • Live
    • Live
    • Neighbors
    • Kids + Pets
    • Neighborhood Intel
    • Products + Test-drives
    • Troubleshooting
  • Improve
    • Improve
    • Small Spaces
    • Small Projects + DIY
    • Renovations
    • Design + Architecture
    • Products + Services
    • How to Renovate in NYC Guide
  • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards & Buildings
    • Boards
    • Finance
    • Insurance
    • Legal
    • Property Management
    • Structure & Systems
    • Sustainability
  • Advertise
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsored Content
    • Experts
  • Brick Report
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Advertise
  • About Us
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER →
Social Links Footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Search
Ask Altagracia [ SPONSORED ]

Ask Sam: What changes to rent stabilization laws are possible in the upcoming year?

By Himmelstein McConnell Gribben & Joseph LLP  | October 10, 2018 - 10:00AM
image

Leonel Ponce / Flickr

SHARE:
Share to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Print
More...

With midterm elections looming, I’m curious how having new representatives in the New York State legislature might impact rent stabilization laws in the city.

Much depends on how the State Senate races turn out, says Sam Himmelstein, a lawyer who represents residential and commercial tenants and tenant associations, but tenant advocates are pushing for several changes to rent stabilization law that could come to pass if Democrats take over the legislature.

“There are bills pending on a lot of these issues,” Himmelstein says. “I don’t think they’re going to get all of these done, but if Democrats get a majority in the Senate, there is a chance.”

Here are some of the most substantial potential changes that could unfold over the next year:

  • Ending vacancy deregulation: Under the current policy, if a tenant moves out of a rent stabilized apartment and the landlord can raise the rent over the stabilization threshold (currently $2,733.75) by making substantial improvements to the apartment and/or taking the rent increase permitted when a unit is vacated, that apartment is removed from rent regulation after a subsequent vacancy. Ending this would yield substantive changes: “Every apartment in buildings built before 1974, with six units or more, would remain stabilized,” Himmelstein says. “New tenants would still be stabilized regardless of landlord improvements. This bill would also re-regulate many apartments that landlords had previously de-stabilized are now market-rate.”  

 

  • Closing the preferential rent loophole: Some landlords of rent-stabilized apartments offer tenants a “preferential rent” that is lower than the legal rent. However, these rents are not subject to the law that limits by how much stabilized rents can be increased each year, so when these tenants renew their leases, the landlords can then raise their rents by substantial amounts. Eliminating this loophole would make the preferential rent the base rent for all future increases, and thus prevent landlords from attracting tenants with a more affordable-seeming rent, and then surprising them upon lease renewal.

 

  • Ending vacancy increases: State law permits landlords of stabilized apartments to increase the rent by 20 percent when a new tenant moves into a vacated apartment and signs a two-year lease, or by 19.25 percent if a new tenant signs a one-year lease. Tenant advocates argue that this is too high, encourages landlords to evict tenants, and should be ended.

 

  • MCI and IAI reform: Major Capital Improvements and Individual Apartment Improvements are substantial renovations that landlords make to apartment buildings or to individual units, which then enables them to raise the rent on stabilized units by a percentage based on the cost of the updates. “There have been all different kinds of reforms proposed,” Himmelstein explains. “One is to make MCIs a temporary surcharge instead of a permanent rent increase, and once landlord is paid back for their work, it would end. There are also proposals to tighten the definitions of what counts as an MCI or IAI.” Another possible reform to MCIs and IAIs would be to extend the amortization period, so that monthly rent increases would be reduced. In addition, the current 50 percent offset for landlords who receive J-51 tax benefits could be increased to 100 percent, and a mechanism established to require the state housing agency to verify the J-51 benefit before granting the rent increase. This is important because currently there is no enforcement or coordination between state and city agencies, and many landlords get away with “double-dipping,” that is collecting both full MCI rent increases and J-51 tax benefits.

 

  • Ending MCI rent increases: Another bill proposes to end MCI rent increases entirely and grant landlords tax subsidies instead. And a bill is being drafted that would simply bar rent hikes for building-wide improvements, without any tax benefits to the landlord. Given the recent expose of how the Trump family used fraudulent bills to inflate MCI rent increases for their rent-regulated tenants, a change in the state legislature could mean new laws that eliminate or vastly reduce MCIs.

 

  • Mitchell-Lama reform: Mitchell-Lama buildings provide affordable rentals and co-ops to low and moderate-income New Yorkers, but currently, when these buildings leave the Mitchell-Lama program, only those built before 1974 go into rent stabilization, while the rest turn market-rate. A change in state leadership could mean reforming this program so that all Mitchell-Lama apartments, regardless of their date of construction, would become rent-stabilized. Post-1973 Mitchell-Lama and project-based Section 8 buildings would be covered by the bill. The bill also bars the use of "unique or peculiar circumstances" as the basis for a rent increase when a building transitions from Mitchell-Lama or Section 8 to rent stabilization.

 

  • Allowing more municipalities to opt into rent-stabilization: “There is legislation being considered that would allow any municipality in the state to opt into rent regulation, as opposed to just New York, Westchester, Rockland and Nassau Counties,” Himmelstein says. Currently, those are the only New York State municipalities with rent stabilization laws in place.

 

  • Greater eviction protection: Another bill pending in the state legislature, Himmelstein says, would give tenants in small buildings not subject to rent-stabilization greater protection from being asked to move out when their leases expire. “Landlords could only do good-cause eviction of tenants,” he explains.

 

  • Lowering rent increases on rent-controlled apartments: Currently, tenants of rent-controlled apartments pay higher annual rent increases than those of rent-stabilized apartments; pending legislation would lower those increases.

It’s difficult to predict which, if any, of these changes could come to pass, but the most sweeping would be ending vacancy deregulation, Himmelstein says: “We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of stabilized and controlled apartments, and this would bring them back and stop the tide of deregulation.”

Related: 

Ask Sam: What the rules for evicting rent-stabilized tenants in NYC? (sponsored)

Ask Sam: How do I find out if my apartment should be rent-stabilized--and if the landlord owes me money? (sponsored)

Ask Sam: My landlord claims I'm not rent-stabilized because a J-51 subsidy expired before I moved in. Is this true? (sponsored)

Ask Sam: What are the rules for succession in Mitchell-Lama housing? (sponsored)

Ask Sam: What's a "Major Capital Improvement," and does it really mean my landlord can raise the rent? (sponsored)

Read all our Ask a Renters Rights Lawyer columns here.


 

Sam Himmelstein, Esq. represents NYC tenants and tenant associations in disputes over evictions, rent increases, rental conversions, rent stabilization law, lease buyouts, and many other issues. He is a partner at Himmelstein, McConnell, Gribben, Donoghue & Joseph in Manhattan. To submit a question for this column, click here. To ask about a legal consultation, email Sam or call (212) 349-3000.

Alanna Schubach

Alanna Schubach

Contributing writer

Contributing editor Alanna Schubach has over a decade of experience as a New York City-based freelance journalist.

SEE MORE BY Alanna Schubach »
Brick Underground articles occasionally include the expertise of, or information about, advertising partners when relevant to the story. We will never promote an advertiser's product without making the relationship clear to our readers.

topics:

Ask Altagracia eviction landlords Mitchell Lama rent regulation renters taxes
SHARE
TWEET
BRICK’S PICKS
Historic brick facades of NYC apartment buildings
Getting overcharged by a landlord? Here’s how the Tenant Protection Unit helps rent-stabilized tenants
Apartment buildings in Soho
New Rent Guidelines Board report justifies a rent freeze, tenant advocates claim
Brooklyn apartment buildings
Understanding net effective rent: Here's how to calculate your real monthly rent
image
How much should you renovate your NYC apartment or house before selling?
Council Member Shahana Hanif hold press conference before the City Council vote on Arrow Linen spot rezoning.
City Council signs off on 10-story towers for Arrow Linen site
couple standing close, only jeans-clad legs showing
Can my boyfriend claim ownership of my condo if we break up?
Follow Brick on Instagram
@brickunderground | #brickunderground
Brick UndergroundBRICK UNDERGROUNDREAL LIFE. REAL ESTATE. REAL NEW YORK.
Social Links Footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Search
Main menu footer
  • Buy
    • The Market
    • Investing
    • New Construction + Condos
    • Affordable Housing
    • Co-ops
    • Negotiating + Financing
    • How to Buy in NYC Guide
  • Rent
    • Affordable Housing
    • Roommates + Landlords
    • The Market
    • The Search
    • How to Rent in NYC Guide
  • Sell
    • Staging + Open Houses
    • Negotiations + Closings
    • Getting Ready
    • How to Sell in NYC Guide
  • Live
    • Neighbors
    • Kids + Pets
    • Neighborhood Intel
    • Products + Test-drives
    • Troubleshooting
  • Improve
    • Small Spaces
    • Small Projects + DIY
    • Renovations
    • Design + Architecture
    • Products + Services
    • How to Renovate in NYC Guide

Get more news you can actually use...

The subscription service is currently unavailable. Please check again later.

Delivered to your inbox weekly - for free.

*By signing up you agree to receive occasional emails on behalf of our sponsors

Footer Menu
  • About Us
  • Advertise

Copyright 2009-2024 by BND Ventures Inc | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Ad Choices | Login