Two Brooklyn landlords charged market-rate rents on rent-stabilized apartments without telling their tenants those units were protected, the state attorney general says. One of them allegedly sent a friend to impersonate him in court.
Attorney General Letitia James is suing John Anderson, who owns 1075 Dean Street in Crown Heights, and Claudette Henry, who owns 134 Sackman Street in Brownsville. According to her office and reporting from Gothamist and the Brooklyn Paper, both charged market-rate rents on legally rent-stabilized apartments and never registered those units with the state’s Department of Homes and Community Renewal, the official registry for stabilized apartments.
The attorney general alleges that for 10 years Anderson failed to give his tenants the rent-stabilized leases they were entitled to, harassed residents who went looking for those leases, and tried to illegally evict them. Prosecutors say Anderson sent a friend to impersonate him in court and lied about the building’s rent-stabilized status on an application to the city Department of Buildings.
These landlords didn’t evict tenants. They never told them their apartments were rent-stabilized. Rents went up every year because tenants didn’t know they were capped.
These are the first lawsuits James has filed under a new Rent Stabilization Compliance Program, which means they are meant as a warning shot. Her office is asking the court to force both landlords to register the buildings, hand over real stabilized leases, and pay back every overcharged tenant with 9 percent interest, plus penalties that run from $2,000 to $10,000 for each harassed occupant and $500 per unit for every month it went unregistered.
If you rent in Crown Heights, Brownsville, or anywhere with prewar buildings, check your apartment’s status. You can request your apartment’s official rent history from the state’s Homes and Community Renewal at no cost. If the legal rent on file is lower than what you are paying, that gap is money you may be owed.
