Are you in
compliance with the code compliance timetable?
The current law provides that owners of buildings, covered by the 1982
Loft Law, are required to obtain a residential Certificate of Occupancy (“C of
O”) on or before July 2, 2012. If your tenants are currently paying
their rent, without regard to the legalization status of the building, they may
not continue to do so after hearing about the Maugenest decision, which
received wide publicity.
If you do not think you will meet
the July 2, 2012 deadline, you should file an application with the Loft Board
for an extension of time prior to the deadline.
If the Loft Board grants the application, your deadline will be extended
until a date certain, and then your IMD tenants will be required to pay rent up
to and including the extension date.
In the
past, the Loft Law was set to expire on a date certain, and each time the law
was extended, the legislature also moved back the code compliance
deadlines. However, all of that changed
with the 2010 statute, which does not ever
expire. There is little reason to expect
that the legislature will ever re-visit the Loft Law in order to give owners a
break and extend the code compliance deadlines for buildings covered under the
1982 law. Furthermore, owners who do not
obtain a C of O may be hit with a Loft Board enforcement proceeding for penalties
of $1,000.00 per day for failure to take all necessary and reasonable steps to
obtain a C of O.
