New York’s highest court, The Court of Appeals will hear an appeal of the Appellate Division in Altman v 285 W. Fourth, LLC--the controversial case dealing with monetary thresholds for rent deregulation.If upheld, Altman could result in the re-regulation of more than 100,000 deregulated units throughout New York City, having a disastrous financial impact on owners of multifamily residences.

“The fact that the Court of Appeals, New York’s Highest Court, has granted leave to hear the appeal is significant,” said Matthew Brett, partner at Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman.“Property owners for decades have deregulated rent stabilized apartments by lawfully taking rent increases that brought an outgoing tenant’s legal rent over the deregulation threshold. If the rent was lawfully raised above the threshold, then the next incoming tenant would be a free market tenant. The Appellate Division inexplicably rejected this procedure and upended a decades-long practice of deregulating apartments—a practice supported by the explicit language of the Rent Stabilization Law, the Rent Stabilization Code, agency precedent and many cases.Altman maintains that de-regulation should be based on the rent charged to the outgoing tenant, not the incoming tenant.

“We acted on behalf of a major industry organizations, namely RSA, CHIP, REBNY, SPONY and AOAC in the motion to support this appeal to review the Altman decision; and we are hopeful that Altman will not stand and the longstanding deregulation practice will remain in place.”

About Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman LLP

BBWG, established in 1989, is a full-service real estate law firm with offices in New York and Connecticut.The firm has more than 50 seasoned lawyers counseling business professionals, investors, landlords, residential homeowners and commercial property owners throughout the region in complex transactional and regulatory real estate law matters. www.bbwg.com