By Gus Saltonstall
Following an investigation by a housing watchdog group, a major Upper West Side landlord has been sued for allegedly overcharging residents on rent and illegally destabilizing units in multiple neighborhood buildings.
The lawsuit was filed in New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday by 12 residents of four different Upper West Side buildings owned and managed by Weinreb Management. The residents accused the landlord of illegally overcharging tenants to the tune of more than an estimated $12.5 million.
One tactic used by Weinreb Management to illegally deny units their rightfully rent-regulated status was to cease registering the units as rent-regulated with the state and then renting them at market-rate prices, despite no evidence of improvements in the units, according to the lawsuit.
In other instances, units in the four Upper West Side buildings were registered as “Exempt NYC COOP/CONDO,” which would make them exempt from rent stabilization, despite no evidence that the units were ever legally co-ops or condos, the lawsuit reads.
The Weinreb Management buildings involved in the suit are located at:
- 5 West 86th Street (between Columbus and Central Park West)
- 51 West 86th Street (between Columbus and Central Park West)
- 110 West 96th Street (between Amsterdam and Columbus)
- 350 Central Park West (between West 94th and 95th streets)
According to the lawsuit, one example of the illegal tactic featured an apartment at 51 West 86th Street that was last registered with the state in 2008 at a regulated rent cost of $752.27 a month, but then was never registered as regulated again. At the time, deregulating that unit would have cost around $42,600 in improvements, but there is no evidence any such improvements were made, the lawsuit reads.
Weinreb Management did not immediately provide West Side Rag with a response to the allegations in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed following an investigation by Housing Rights Initiative into Weinreb Management, with the support of Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Councilmember Gale Brewer, and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal.
“This class action is about both justice for today’s tenants and the future of the Upper West Side,” Aaron Carr, founder and executive director of Housing Rights Initiative told West Side Rag in a statement. “Let this class action send a message to every rule-breaking landlord on the Upper West Side: if we catch you illegally overcharging tenants, the question is not whether you’ll be caught, but when.”
The lawsuit asks the judge to award all 12 of the Upper West Side plaintiffs a sum equal to or exceeding $1 million each. Additionally, by law, tenants found to have been overcharged on rent are entitled to rent refunds, rent reductions, and properly rent-stabilized leases.
“This class action suit is especially important when the median rent in Manhattan is close to $5,300 a month. It’s imperative that we enforce the laws that prevent landlords from deregulating affordable apartments,” Hoylman-Sigal told the Rag on the phone. “Rent stabilized apartments are an endangered species in places like the Upper West Side, and we need to everything we can to protect their continued existence. They are an incredibly important source of housing for lower and middle income Manhattanites.”
Upper West Siders can check if their apartments have been illegally destabilized by either reaching out to the Manhattan Borough President’s Office, or requesting their individual rent history with the New York State Homes and Community Renewal Agency.
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Good. Time to reign in the illegal conversion of rent stabilized apartments. Thank god Mamdani won the election.
Mamdani? Residents are suing the building, not the city. The investigation was conducted by a watchdog group, not the city, or financed by the city. Mamdani certainly has great rhetoric, but his ideas will very likely make the city less affordable for many many New Yorkers The illegal market rate transition – glad they are being sued.
Yep, we definitely need more rent stabilized apartments so that everything else is even MORE expensive. Good plan! Let the market work, man. Wish more people took basic economics courses and stopped voting for populists.
Believing that a landlord will charge anything less than he can possibly get for an apartment, regardless of what he’s making on the rest of the rent roll, is certainly a choice. (We saw what happened in Boston/Cambridge in 1995–the decontrolled rents came up, the market rents escalated in tandem.)
Aaron Carr does not have the best reputation among some in left leaning political circles. They don’t see his housing advocacy as genuine.
Look into the Ormonde on Broadway and 70th next
“But the poor landlord, someone’s gotta stick up for him. He needs to eat just like you and me, he’s a human being just trying to find his way in the world. He needs to self actualize just like the rest of us and find his calling. If that’s illegally over charging rent via purposely deregulating rent stabilized units for massive market rate cash sums over seemingly decades, then you know he’s a doer, a go-getter, and a stand-up patriot. No renter class action suit for millions in pilfered rent / deliberately hoodwinking the authorities could ever besmirch his proud name. Weinreb. Remember it folks. And when you come a knocking for a hand out from a true American job creator, you’ll be turned out on the street. Because you don’t belong! No takers here!” Said commenters on this forum.
I would not be surprised if the effect of all these housing watchdog lawsuits is to bankrupt UWS landlords and force them to sell their buildings at bargain basement prices. I do recall Aaron Carr making X posts against historic district landmarking. A lot of the UWS is in a historic district. There’s no Santa Claus in real estate.
If you can’t afford to hold an asset, you have to sell the asset. They gambled. They lost. That’s the market doing what the market does. Plenty of investors are lining up to buy these buildings, fix them up, and rent them. These nepo-babies with lawyers, who let’s face it largely inherited the buildings, have had them paid for over and over again by the tenants. If you can’t afford to fix them up, get out of the business.
Sorry your golden goose is just gold encrusted.
There is no way investors want to buy buildings with rent stabilized or controlled apartments, unless they think the market rate rents will go up so much it more than offsets the fact that rent stabilized rents are frozen
Gold plated?
Plenty of investors are not lining up to buy buildings that have rent stabilized units unless they are confident that they can buy out the rent stabilized tenants to convert into ultra luxury housing.
The other thing is if a landlord cannot afford to maintain a pre war building, we are going to be in the same place we are with the church on 86th and Amsterdam, where a rezoning taking the building out of the historic district is the only way to fund much needed repairs and return the building to financial health so it can be maintained properly. Also it is much harder to convert a rental building into a co-op or condo these days, so the only thing is to take a building out of historic preservation, something the elected officials oppose. Let’s not forget how Aaron Carr opposes historic district landmarking and supported the SoHo rezoning which so far has not made housing more affordable there and has further fueled gentrification.
Landlords are part of the rentier class, the oligarchs or the next couple of levels down. They make huge profits. I can’t believe the “poor” landlord bit that’s going on.
Many of these so called progressives hate real estate unless you have the stamp of approval by Open New York, Abundance New York or Mitchell Draizin.
Have you ever heard of the fifth amendment the takings clause there will be a case in the Supreme Court double strike down rent stabilization. It is great if you have it but terrible if you do not.
SCOTUS has repeatedly denied this argument a hearing.. The question before them now is actually just an administrative one – they’re not going to rule on the merits of the takings argument (yet) because that’s not before them.
And if you are referring to the Tedford case, that owner is arguing that all 6 apartments in the building are rent stabilized and the tenants pay an average of $400/mo. Meanwhile there are listings on streeteasy for apartments for rent in that building for over $4400/mo. The couple who own the building are absentee – they live in a $1.4m house in southern California
Good luck with that one bozos lol
Virtually no other rent regulatory framework on the planet has vacancy control. That’s a big piece of rent regulations in NYC that may be struck down.
you are correct to state that SCOTUS has regularly declined to hear cases relating to rent regulations. However, the tide may be changing. In 2024, Justice Thomas issued a statement (in connection with a challenge to NY’s rent regulation system, primarily the 2019 tenant protection acts) that opened the door for SCOTUS to hear a case on the merits.
Justice Thomas wrote that the “constitutionality of regimes like New York is an important and pressing question.” He went on to state that the case in question at the time was not suitable because the lawsuit included overly broad and generalized allegations. He went on to write that “in an appropriate future case” the justices should “grant review to address this important question.”
My only point is that NY’s rent regulations may end up in front of SCOTUS and then anything can happen.
If a landlord is no longer able to meet expenses because he’s no longer able to steal from his tenants, let him go bankrupt. Rent rolls are known to purchasers in advance, and rent stabilization has been around for a long time.
The flipside to your ‘argument’ is that if a tenant is no longer able to afford a market-rate apartment, they should move to an apartment that they can afford. Market-rate rentals are known to renters in advance, and market rate is the default. But how does that sound??
I find it curious that this situation has persisted for 16 years before a lawsuit was conjured, and that presumably market-rate rents were paid by the tenants, who now backed by the unholy troika of Holyman, Brewer and Rosenthal, appear to be trying to scam-chisel a windfall that they do not need, and to which they SHOULD NOT be entitled.
There are people who can’t afford market rate UWS rents and no one wants to have an honest conversation about historic district landmarking.
Look into Highland Park, Texas. They seceded from Dallas to become their own town with their own local government, first responders, etc. They don’t have to deal with any of these restrictions and simply operate as their own little free market enclave. I’d move there myself if not for the weather
Two quick things. First, isn’t that the building that sued to have the sidewalk shed removed after over a decade (or two)? Second, my friend lives in a Weinreb building and says that they are the worst landlords ever.
Check out fuelgrannie.com on the truth about these people!
I don’t understand what our state is doing. If you don’t re-register your car, don’t you get fined? You mean to say it’s not the same for a rent regulated building? They have to register but nothing happens if they don’t? And if they re-register claiming they now meet different criteria, doesn’t an inspector go out to make sure? Or maybe require that evidence be submitted when a changed registration is requested? It’s horrible that someone can get away with this. It’s more horrible when the government doesn’t do its oversight. What are our high taxes for? If they’re not doing the job i want a tax refund.
The landlord doesn’t or didn’t have to submit an application to remove the apartment from rent regulation where the deregulation was due to certain improvements. The tenants are the ones who have to contest the deregulation either with DHCR or by bringing a lawsuit.
No, you are absolutely fined if you don’t register your building. The owners of the building just lied about what they did – they converted rent stabilized to market rate, with no improvement The city doesn’t check when apartmentd go market rate.
Weinreb has been one of the worst landlords in the city since I worked at HPD in the 1980s. That’s 40 years ago. How have they managed to keep overcharging and failing to maintain safe conditions for so long is beyond me.
Pure greed. A number of rental buildings on the same block, managed by the Rudins and other responsible companies, have been renovating some of their apartments thoroughly and bringing them up to market value, while (mostly) older tenants remain in their stabilized apartments. The owners get the benefit of higher rents; the old folks have peace of mind and buildings become a more interesting mix of young and old families. No need for Weinreb style fraud and thievery.
So a landlord can just not register the apartment and that’s that? Nobody checks?
Second generation Weinreb tenant here: they were awful way back in the 80s, and apparently they haven’t changed. I watched them try to force my parents (and other holdouts) out of their rent-stabilized unit for years by avoiding appropriate upkeep of the apartment. They’d replace essential non-working appliances (fridge, stove) with crappy used/old models that I assume they salvaged from other apartments. They tried to charge me for months of ConEd service on an apartment that I hadn’t even moved into. I’ve wished for years that they’d get investigated.
I rented from Weinreb beginning in July 1969 for a welcome $269 a month, in what I was told was, at that time, a rent-controlled apartment. Was instructed to appear at Weinreb office with one month rent in cash for rent and another month rent in envelope to be slipped under the desk to either (I forget) a Mr. Weinreb or a Mr.. Moscowitz. Remained in that apartment until 1993, by which time the rent had gone from $269 a month to over $2000 a month, which I had wondered was a legitimate increase for a rent-controlled or even rent-stabiliized apartment. The entire building was offered a coop plan in around 1971, with our apartment–huge, 2 bedroom, 2 bath–going for $10,000. Most expensive on offere was the penthouse for $16,000. The foolish tenants turned down the plan. When we moved out some 20 years later, I appplied for return of security depoosit, plus interest (which had been over 20 percent in the late 19970s–I had a 1979 mortgage elsewhere at 21.5 percent).). So little was offered that I rejected the money. Any attempts to collect security deposit in the meantime have failed. Perhaps now, with investigation, there will be a way to request the return of the security deposit, with interest (though I doubt it–also any return of overpaid rent for apartment 3j, 350 CPW). Good luck to those presently living in the building.
This has been a long time coming. This has been going on for decades.