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]

From left: 90-36 149th Street and George Subraj of Zara Realty

Tenants at 90-36 149th Street in Jamaica, Queens, are suing landlord Zara Realty after they were charged lump sums for capital improvements made to their building, the New York Daily News reported.

Long-time tenants at the rent-stabilized building say they were charged the increase in one installment because the landlord wants to force out lower-income residents. Charges included $145 to replace windows that were broken during construction, according to tenants.

The suit says tenants were charged more upfront than the landlord was entitled to collect, and that repairs tenants should not have to pay for were billed to residents.
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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]

REBNY head Stephen Spinola

From the December issue: The more than 12,000 members of the Real Estate Board of New York will soon be reaching for their checkbooks to send their annual dues to the influential trade group. And there’s no doubt many will be engaging in a yearly cost-benefit analysis of the nonprofit’s value.

Members pay more than $6 million per year in dues — which are supposed to be in on Jan. 1 — and the group takes in several million more through its annual gala and other income that make up its approximately $9 million annual budget.

The 115-year-old organization is the undisputed top real estate organization in the city, and presents a powerful and unified public front. But there are rumblings of discontent, partly because it operates with a lopsided distribution of power. For example, building owners and residential firms are contributing roughly the same amount of money to the organization, but owners outnumber residential brokers on the board 10 to 1. 

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An Upper West Side landlord who owns a five-story brownstone on West 76th Street with six rental apartments has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to free him of rent stabilization laws, arguing that it’s unfair for him to have to subsidize tenants wealthy enough to pay market rates, the Daily News reported.
Three of James Harmon’s six units are occupied by tenants who pay 59 percent below market value, the News said. All three of them have lived in the building for more than 30 years.
“My family has carried the burden of this for 40 years and enough is enough,” Harmon said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has compelled the city to answer the petition by Jan. 4, 2012. [NYDN]

More New Jersey towns have rent-control rules than any other state in the country, but according to the Wall Street Journal many of those municipalities are moving to eradicate parts of the law.

Last week two cities, Hoboken and Bayonne, voted to soften rent-control rules, with the former limiting the amount tenants can recoup from past overcharges and the latter decontrolling apartments after tenants move out. The state’s controlled units typically have rent appreciations that correspond with the Consumer Price Index, or about 2 percent, per year. In recent years, nine towns have chosen to phase out the laws entirely. [more]

Tenants of Pinnacle Group buildings, largely in Northern Manhattan, want a judge to throw out a settlement their lawyers reached with the landlord for rent overcharges, the New York Daily News reported.

Five years ago tenants sued Pinnacle, one of the city’s biggest rent-stabilized apartment owners, for illegal rent charges and harassing tenants in an effort to drive them out and increase rents. Lawyers found rent-stabilized tenants, whose rents are registered with the state, had been, in some cases, charged as much as $800 per month more than the state registry indicates.

As per the terms of the agreement reached by Pinnacle and the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Pinnacle has hired a court administrator to settle the claims and award damages to the tenants. [more]

From left: Attorney Sam Himmelstein, Stuyvesant Town and 56 Seventh Avenue (source: PropertyShark)

[Updated 2:47 p.m.] A New York state appellate court ruled yesterday that the landmark decision to protect rent-stabilized
tenants in the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village case should be applied retroactively, a move
that could open the floodgates to millions of dollars in rent overcharges at other developments.
The new case, in which the court actually upheld the landlord’s lower court victory, involved a
Manhattan couple looking to overturn a prior rent-decontrol ruling at 56 Seventh Avenue in the West
Village. The tenants argued that the Stuy Town case, called Roberts vs Tishman Speyer, where Roberts was a tenant, should allow them to have their market-rate apartment rents refunded in the form of overcharges.

“The Court of Appeals, when they decided Roberts , specifically left open the question of retroactivity,”
said attorney Sam Himmelstein, who represented the tenants in the new case. “Landlords have been
making motions to dismiss these cases saying that it shouldn’t be applied retroactively. Even though we
lost the case, it’s a massive victory for tenants at large.” [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]