One of the problems facing landlords throughout NYC is the rapidly rising vacancy rate because of COVID-19. In spite of the rent stabilization laws, landlords are now competing with each other to offer their tenants better and better deals just to keep them or to entice them to rent an apartment. With the amendments to the Rent Laws in 2019 punishing landlords for offering deals to their tenants by making the discounts permanent for decades to come, coming up with such enticements for tenants without breaking the law and without financially hamstringing a building has become increasingly challenging. The one thing that all landlords, thanks to the 2019 laws, want to avoid is putting in a preferential rent.

However, Dov Treiman and Carolyn Rualo, partners of the Landlord-Tenant Department, devised an agreement that landlords and tenants can sign that reflects the reduction of services adherence to CDC Guidelines create. Landlords can always reimburse tenants on a temporary basis for temporary service reductions without it having to become a permanent reduction of the rent. Under these agreements, the rent reductions are only effective until NYC’s COVID-19 Crisis has passed, due to full availability of vaccines. Thus, ALBPC clients are better positioned to entice tenants to rent from them, even during these tough times.