Bill Text: NY S06757 | 2015-2016 | General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Relates to penalties for owners of property who fail to file a proper or timely rent registration statement.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2016-02-17 - REFERRED TO HOUSING, CONSTRUCTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT [S06757 Detail]

Download: New_York-2015-S06757-Introduced.html

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                STATE OF NEW YORK
        ________________________________________________________________________
                                          6757
                    IN SENATE
                                    February 17, 2016
                                       ___________
        Introduced  by  Sen. HOYLMAN -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
          printed to be committed to the Committee on Housing, Construction  and
          Community Development
        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 times the amount of such over-
    14  charge.   [In no event shall such] A  treble  damage  penalty  shall  be
    15  assessed against an owner based solely on said owner's failure to file a
    16  proper  or  timely initial or annual rent registration statement. If the
    17  owner establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that the overcharge
    18  was neither willful nor attributable to his negligence, the state  divi-
    19  sion of housing and community renewal shall establish the penalty as the
    20  amount  of  the overcharge plus interest at the rate of interest payable
    21  on a judgment pursuant to section five thousand four of the civil  prac-
    22  tice law and rules. (i) Except as to complaints filed pursuant to clause
    23  (ii)  of this paragraph, the legal regulated rent for purposes of deter-
    24  mining an overcharge, shall be deemed to be the rent  indicated  in  the
    25  most recent annual registration statement filed [four years prior to the

         EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
                              [ ] is old law to be omitted.
                                                                   LBD04182-02-6