Though courts on all levels have routinely upheld rent stabilization laws, and despite the fact that his own case has been dismissed by two state courts, James Harmon has caught the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court in his bid to fight the regulations. But according to the New York Law Journal, Harmon isn’t any more likely to win his case than previous challengers – even after the Supreme Court requested the city file a response explaining the courts’ aforementioned dismissals. [more]

James Harmon, a former federal prosecutor who owns a townhouse on West 76th Street near Central Park, could be going before the U.S. Supreme Court to fight rent regulation.

The New York Times reported that Harmon has lost twice in lower courts, including in the Court of Appeals in Manhattan in September, but the Supreme Court has taken notice of the case and asked the city and state to file answers to Harmon’s petition to be heard.

Harmon, who lives on the parlor floor of the house and rents out the top floors as six one-bedroom apartments, claims that the rent laws are a “taking” of his property. [more]

Few situations could bolster rent-stabilization opponents’ case like an Oscar-winning actress paying $1,048.72 per month for her Upper East Side rental apartment while living in California. The New York Times reported that an anonymous landlord has filed suit against Faye Dunaway for allegedly paying rent-regulated prices on an apartment in which she does not actually reside.

The apartment is a one-bedroom in a century-old walk-up building on East 78th Street between First and Second avenues that Dunaway began renting in 1994. But the 70-year-old actress, who won an Oscar for her performance in the 1976 film “Network,” pays a mortgage on a home in West California, has her automobile registered there and was hit with three moving violations in California between May and December 2010. [more]

Now that rent stabilization laws have been renewed and strengthened for at least the next four years, the Rent Guidelines Board will vote today on how much landlords can raise rents in those units. According to NY1, board members will congregate at Cooper Union’s Great Hall this evening to consider rent increases of 3 to 5.75 percent for one-year lease renewals, and 6 to 9 percent for two-year renewals. The hikes would go into effect Oct. 1. [more]

A great deal is resting on legislators’ ability to come to a deal on rent regulation. In fact, as talks continue, gay marriage advocates are becoming increasingly riled. Protesters for and against gay marriage mobbed the Senate chamber in Albany yesterday as talks on whether to vote on same-sex weddings ground to a halt over rent laws, according to the New York Post.

Rent regulation and gay marriage talks have been inextricably linked by Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who sources said was delaying any gay-marriage vote until he could make a deal with Governor Andrew Cuomo to extend expired tenant protections on more than one million New York apartment units.

Rent regulation, it seems, gives the upstate and suburban Republicans their only leverage against city-centric Democrats, the Post said. [more]

Legislative negotiators have the framework to put a new rent stabilization agreement in place, and a law could be enacted as soon as today, according to the New York Post. The pending current agreement raises the threshold at which rents can be decontrolled to $2,500 per month, from the $2,000 threshold in place for the last eight years. Moreover, the maximum annual income for tenants in regulated units will rise to $200,000 from $175,000. As has been previously reported, significant progress was made in negotiations over the weekend. [more]

After months of fruitless negotiations, New York’s rent laws expired late last night, despite the Assembly and Senate signaling early in the evening that they would pass a bill to extend the existing rent laws for two days, ending Friday at 3 p.m, according to the Wall Street Journal.  The Senate voted the extension bill down 43-14 late in the night, with the majority of Democrats, and some Republicans, voting against it. The Senate Democrats had been persuaded by tenant advocates to deny even a very short-term extension in order to draw attention to their efforts to expand protections for tenants.
“Our members have said from the start: extension is not enough — we need to strengthen regulations,” said Austin Shafran, a spokesperson for the Senate Democrats. [more]

There’s less than a week left before the state’s rent regulation laws expire, and according the Post, Albany lawmakers are still so far from reaching an agreement that they’ve begun considering a short-term extension that would buy them some time to continue negotiating. The current laws, which expire June 15, govern the prices on approximately 1.1 million rental apartments in the city. Gov. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver have been pushing to expand tenant protections, while Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos is advocating for a more landlord-friendly plan that sticks to the status quo. [more]

As next week’s expiration of the state’s rent regulation laws approaches, a new state-sponsored report has revealed that nearly two-thirds of New York City’s 2 million rental apartments still enjoy regulated rental rates. According to the Post, the report, by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, found 1.4 million rental apartments to be either rent-stabilized, publicly-owned or taxpayer-subsidized — and that’s after the roughly 10,000 units that have been deregulated over the course of the last decade. The impending June 15 deadline for rent regulation to be renewed is threatening some 1 million New York City apartments as lawmakers, tenant advocates and landlords try to hammer out an agreement on income and monthly rent thresholds for decontrol.
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While Governor Andrew Cuomo lobbies for rent-regulation, New York City landlords claim that they cannot sustain their businesses without rent increases for stabilized apartments, according to Crain’s. Operating costs for buildings that are entirely or partially rent-regulated– almost half the residential buildings in the city — jumped 6.1 percent in the year ending March 31, according to New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s annual price index, 2.7 percent more of an increase than in the previous year.

“A lot of owners can’t make their expenses,” said Roberta Bernstein, president of non-profit organization Small Property Owners of New York. “We keep on getting strangled.”

Owners say they are facing a dramatic rise in taxes in addition to hikes in the cost of fuel and utilities. Fuel has risen 23 percent in the last year, according to the index, real estate taxes rose 3.5 percent and property taxes ate from 7 to 30 percent of landlords’ income. [more]