Tenants owed $215 million in rent overcharges

New York Daily News 08/05/2010 15:26

Tenants of Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town when they rallied in January. A judge has ruled that MetLife, former owner of the apartments, is on the hook for millions in illegal rent.

MetLife, the insurance giant that once owned Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village is still on the hook for massive payouts to tenants whose rents were illegally raised, a Manhattan judge has ruled.

The decision by Supreme Court Justice Richard Lowe in the long-running $215 million lawsuit was hailed by tenant advocates as a victory for residents of 4,400 apartments that were deregulated.

But a landlords group countered that it could end up financially clobbering building owners citywide.

MetLife, which owned the complex of more than 11,000 apartments until 2006, had been challenging a 2009 ruling by the state's highest court that the current and former owners of the complex had illegally deregulated thousands of apartments.

"Assuming this ruling stands, the tenants have the right to recover their full overcharges, which we estimate at more than $200 million," said Alex Schmidt, a lawyer for the tenants. "MetLife is on the hook for its share."

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