NEW YORK CITY—A slew of building owner recipients of 421-a tax breaks have been put on notice by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other public officials that they haven't fulfilled the law's rent-regulation requirements. A total of 194 property owners—who Schneiderman's office declined to identify to GlobeSt.com—received letters notifying them of the violation.
The missives came as part of the state's newly formed Real Estate Tax Compliance Program, for which the team includes Attorney General Schneiderman's real estate finance bureau, Governor Andrew Cuomo's tenant protection unit and the NYC Dept. of Housing Preservation & Development's tax incentive programs unit.
The Real Estate Board of New York has deemed the letters reasonable. "Given the complexity of the 421-a program, it was conceivable that many of the small owners misunderstood the rules and did not realize that they had to register the rentals if they had previously submitted a condo plan," says Michael Slattery, SVP of reasearch at the organization. The approach to give them time to register the units without penalties was a fair and reasonable response to the situation."
Declares Schneiderman, “Landlords of rental buildings who accept these tax incentives must follow through on their end of the bargain and offer rent-regulated leases to their tenants. The Real Estate Tax Compliance Program, which we're announcing today, will safeguard tenants' rights, protect more than two thousand units of New York City's rent-regulated housing stock, and ensure that our important and limited tax dollars are properly spent.”
Adds Governor Cuomo, “We will not tolerate landlords who break the law and deny their tenants rent-regulated leases, plain and simple. This partnership will help ensure that building owners who benefit from the 421-a program are living up to their responsibilities. Owners who are not currently in compliance should get their act together immediately or face the real possibility of having the TPU freeze rents, pursue overcharges and seek damages.”
James Rubin, commissioner/CEO of NYS Homes & Community Renewal asserts, “This 421-a compliance initiative with the Governor's Tenant Protection Unit, the Attorney General, and HPD will return apartments to regulation, protecting the rights of tenants to have annual lease renewals with reasonable rent increases. We coordinated our efforts to identify buildings and owners who had received an exemption and then filed for, but failed to follow through with, a condominium offering plan. The law says: If you have not sold units under a condominium offering plan, you are a rental building and must register those units as rent regulated. If there are owners out there who believe they are able to defy the law without consequences, know this: We will continue to enforce the law to its fullest extent.”
Notes HPD commissioner Vicki Been, “This initiative is the largest enforcement action so far, but it is by no means the last. We will not stop until every property is brought into compliance.”
The notices, sent Tuesday, alert owners to the potential legal consequences they face—
including revocation of 421-a tax benefits—if they do not come into compliance by registering their apartments as rent-regulated and supplying their tenants with rent-regulated leases.
If an owner fails to register or fails to register properly, TPU can seek an administrative order freezing the current rents, as well as pursue overcharge actions against the owners for collecting improper rents and will seek treble damages on behalf of the effected tenants.
The buildings deemed not in compliance with the 421-a rent-regulation requirements are in all five boroughs of New York City, with a high concentration of buildings in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Bensonhurst. In Queens, the community districts encompassing Astoria, Long Island City, Corona and Elmhurst have more than two dozen non-compliant buildings.
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
