Aras v. B-U Realty Corp., 2023 NY Slip Op 04917 (2023)

Citation: Aras v. B-U Realty Corp., 2023 NY Slip Op 04917 (2023)
Parent Document: Aras v. B-U Realty Corp., 2023 NY Slip Op 04917 (2023)
Jurisdiction: New York (state)
Effective Date: 2023-10-03
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/9430365/aras-v-b-u-realty-corp/ ↗

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Put another way, neither Regina nor Casey holds that a court is barred from reviewing the pre-base date rent history to determine whether there was fraud, and, in doing so, examining whether the registered rents comport with applicable guidelines increases for earlier years. In Thornton, cited with approval in Regina, the Court noted that, were it to apply the base date rent where the landlord had engaged in a fraudulent scheme to overcharge and ultimately deregulate apartments, "a landlord whose fraud remains undetected for four years—however willful or egregious the violation—would, simply by virtue of having filed a registration statement, transform an illegal rent into a lawful assessment that would form the basis for all future rent increases" (5 NY3d at 181). In Grimm, cited with approval in both Regina and Casey, the Court of Appeals held that, where a tenant alleges fraud in an overcharge claim, the court or DHCR, as the authority determining the claim, "has an obligation to ascertain whether the rent on the base date is a lawful rent" (15 NY3d at 366 [emphasis [*13]added]). The Grimm Court clarified that:

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