NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A654B
SPONSOR: Rosenthal TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seven-
ty-four, and the administrative code of the city of New York, in
relation to increasing penalties for owners of rent-regulated property
who overcharge tenants
PURPOSE:
This bill imposes penalties on property owners who overcharge tenants.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section one amends the opening paragraph of paragraph 1 of subdivision a
of section 12 of section 4 of chapter 576 of the laws of 1974, consti-
tuting the emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seventy-four, as
amended by chapter 116 of the law of 1997, to increase the penalty for a
rent overcharge of a rent-stabilized apartment from three times the
amount of the overcharge to five times the amount for a first offense,
and ten times the amount for any subsequent overcharges.
Section 2 amends the opening paragraph of subdivision a of section
26-516 of the administrative code of the city of New York, as amended by
chapter 116 of the laws of 1997, to increase the penalty for a rent
overcharge of a rent stabilized apartment from three times the amount of
the overcharge to five times the amount for a first offense, and ten
times the amount for any subsequent overcharges.
Section 3 sets forth the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
According to a recent investigation by ProPublica, close to 200,000
units of rent-stabilized apartments are , not properly registered with
the state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), putting
hundreds of thousands of tenants at risk of being overcharged on their
rent or illegally evicted.
The investigation noted that "data provided to ProPublica by DHCR, which
oversees rent-stabilized apartments shows that, as of 2014, New York
City had 839,797 rent-stabilized apartments registered with the state."
Over the same time period, the New York City Department of Housing Pres-
ervation and Development (HPD) published a survey estimating that there
should be 1,029,918 rent-stabilized units in the city - a gap that
dwarfs the survey's 34,000 unit margin of error. According to ProPubli-
ca, HPD's survey methodology attributes the gap between their estimate
and the number of registered rent-stabilized units in part on the
reduced penalties against landlords Who treat apartments that should be
rent-stabilized as market rate.
This bill would increase the penalty for overcharging a rent-stabilized
tenant to five times the amount of the overcharge, plus interest, for a
landlord's first violation, and ten times the amount of the overcharge,
plus interest, for any subsequent violations. As under current law, a
landlord could mitigate the civil penalty by demonstrating by a prepon-
derance of the evidence that the overcharge was neither willful nor
attributable to his or her negligence.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
2023-24: A.106 - Advanced to Third Reading; S.2482 - Advanced to Third
Reading
2021-22: A.2332 - Referred to Housing
2019-20: A.738 - Referred to Housing
2017-18: A.523-8 - Reported to Rules
2015-16: A.9192 - Referred to Housing; 5.6454 - Referred to Housing
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Undetermined.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This bill shall take effect immediately, provided that the amendments to
the opening paragraph of paragraph 1 of subdivision a of section 12 of
the emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seventy-four shall
expire on the same date as such act expires and shall not affect the
expiration of such act as provided in section 17 of chapter 567 of the
laws of 1974; and b. the amendments to section 26-516 of chapter 4 of
title 26 of the administrative code of the city of New York made by
section two of this act shall expire on the same date as such law
expires and shall not affect the expiration of such law as provided
under section 26-520 of such law.
