For decades, New York City tenants have struggled to reveal the secretsof their rental history. Hidden behind bureaucratic walls, informationrelated to previous rents, legal safeguards, and possible overcharges has been extremely hard to obtain. But RentHistory.org is making a difference, allowing renters to crack the code of their apartment's history and fight back against illegal rent hikes.
What Is RentHistory.org? RentHistory.org is a groundbreaking online tool that allows New Yorkers to review their DHCR rent history and determine if their landlord has illegally raised their rent. By inputting information from their DHCR rent history report—a document available from the state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal—users can spot trends of illegal rent hikes, improper deregulation, and other types of landlord abuse. The tool goes beyond the boundaries of individual rent histories; it also includes a free building search tool that exposes all relevant records related to any address in New York City. These include: Department of Buildings violations, Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) complaints and violations, Work permits and permit applications, Multiple dwelling registration records, Litigation records.The building search not only increases transparency about specific addresses but also serves as an investigative tool to aggregate all buildings associated with a specific landlord. This feature reveals: The number of total violations, complaints, and lawsuits associated with your landlord's name,The LLCs and other corporate entities that might be hiding your landlord's identity.For the first time, tenants are given the chance to get a complete picture of their landlord's record and determine if there is a consistent pattern of shady behavior across multiple properties.
They also developed a Rent History "Analyzer" -- the "First and Only of Its Kind" according to the website's homepage. The tool easily proves to be one of its most powerful. With it, renters can simply upload a report of their DHCR rent history, and the site will conduct a full analysis in under a minute, delivering a full breakdown in simple language for them to understand. Rather than struggling with complex rent history reports full of legalese, renters receive a transparent, readable analysis explaining the following information: Whether your apartment continues under rent stabilization. Whether an illegal rent boost took place. Whether your unit was destabilized. Whether you are paying too much in rent. What years illegal rent increases took place. How much in renovation costs your landlord needed to put into your unit in order to legally destabilize it. This new tool is a game changer, putting renters in immediate control. No longer must renters spend countless hours scouring arcane rent laws, as Rent History Analyzer handles all of that for them.
Stakes are high. If your landlord improperly took your apartment out of rent stabilization, you could receive reduced rent and even a refund three times the amount you were overcharged. Landlords have long taken advantage of tenants' lack of awareness about their privileges. By simplifying analysis of rent histories and providing renters with both building-specific and landlord-specificsearch options, RentHistory.org is effectively leveling the tables of power. With such transparency in position, landlords cannot act with impunity. Residents in New York increasingly understand their rights, and RentHistory.org is seeing to it that they have access to tools with which to defend themselves.