An Upper West Side man just landed the sweetest apartment rental in the city—a $2.5 million pad with Central Park views for under $800-a-month!
That’s because an appeals court found that Lane Altschuler’s landlord illegally over-charged him by nearly $3,000-a-month while receiving city tax credits for maintaining rent-stabilized units.
And, as if that deal wasn’t tasty enough, Altschuler gets an $876,619.10 refund.
The amount is equal to three times what the 63-year-old construction supervisor overpaid on his rent. Treble damages are awarded as punishment to landlords who don’t file annual rent-stabilization rates with the city.
Altschuler moved into his three-bed, two-bath at 478 Central Park West in 2000. His rent quickly rose from $3,500 to $3,750 while the developer was converting the building to luxury condos.
Both the lower court in 2013 and the recent appeals decision found that Altschuler’s unit was supposed to stay under market rate because landlord Mann Realty had received over $310,000 in J-51 tax benefits.
Mann Realty’s lawyer Magda Cruz blasted Thursday’s ruling. “The extreme penalties that the appellate court has now upheld, without any trial, are unprecedented,” Cruz said.
“The owner in this case is like thousands of other owners throughout New York City who had rented their vacated apartments in reliance upon the interpretation of the luxury deregulation law prior to Roberts,” Cruz said.
She was referring to the October 2009 state Court of Appeals ruling that said building owners who receive tax breaks for rehabs cannot remove apartments in those buildings from rent regulation.
The ruling is what prompted Altschuler to sue his landlord, claiming the owner used a “fraudulent scheme” to squeeze him for more rent, according to his attorney Christian Siebott.
The unanimous appeals ruling means that Altschuler can stay in his 1,500-square-foot apartment forever at the rent-stabilized rate, with incremental increases as adjusted by the Rent Guidelines Board, his attorney confirmed. And his spacious pad is two floors above the same unit that recently sold for $2.5 million.