Bill Text: NY A09192 | 2015-2016 | General Assembly | Introduced
Bill Title: Relates to penalties for owners of property who fail to file a proper or timely rent registration statement.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-02-02 - referred to housing [A09192 Detail]
Download: New_York-2015-A09192-Introduced.html
STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 9192 IN ASSEMBLY February 2, 2016 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. ROSENTHAL -- read once and referred to the Committee on Housing 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 penalties for owners of property who fail to file a proper or timely rent registration statement The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The opening paragraph of paragraph 1 of subdivision a of 2 section 12 of section 4 of chapter 576 of the laws of 1974, constituting 3 the emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seventy-four, as amended 4 by chapter 116 of the laws of 1997, is amended to read as follows: 5 Subject to the conditions and limitations of this paragraph, any owner 6 of housing accommodations in a city having a population of less than one 7 million or a town or village as to which an emergency has been declared 8 pursuant to section three, who, upon complaint of a tenant or of the 9 state division of housing and community renewal, is found by the state 10 division of housing and community renewal, after a reasonable opportu- 11 nity to be heard, to have collected an overcharge above the rent author- 12 ized for a housing accommodation subject to this act shall be liable to 13 the tenant for a penalty equal to [three] five times the amount of such 14 overcharge for a first offense and ten times the amount of such over- 15 charge for any subsequent overcharges. In no event shall such treble 16 damage penalty be assessed against an owner based solely on said owner's 17 failure to file a proper or timely initial or annual rent registration 18 statement. If the owner establishes by a preponderance of the evidence 19 that the overcharge was neither willful nor attributable to his negli- 20 gence, the state division of housing and community renewal shall estab- 21 lish the penalty as the amount of the overcharge plus interest at the 22 rate of interest payable on a judgment pursuant to section five thousand 23 four of the civil practice law and rules. (i) Except as to complaints 24 filed pursuant to clause (ii) of this paragraph, the legal regulated 25 rent for purposes of determining an overcharge, shall be deemed to be 26 the rent indicated in the annual registration statement filed four years EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [] is old law to be omitted. LBD13334-01-5
