DON'T CALL THESE LEASES SWEETHEARTS

We have certainly fallen through the looking glass (or, if you prefer, down the rabbit hole) when a landlord charging a rent-regulated tenant a preferential rent is called "dangerous."

Do landlords charge too much rent?  I won't touch that one, but thoughtful people on both sides of the divide can disagree on that one.

Do some landlords artificially inflate their rents and then charge a false, made- up "preferential rent"?  Yes, yes,  they do, and any article seeking to expose this is well worth writing.  If you don't like the rent regulations, you should either, as a landlord, actively campaign against them, or get out of the business: subterfuges and game playing cannot be condoned.

But when tenants complain that they signed a lease which clearly states that their rent should be higher, but that they are paying a lesser rent, and that at the end of that lease term their rent can revert to the higher rent, there are no grounds for a complaint.  Not only are people assumed to understand the contracts they are signing, but, given the very medium which publicized the above article, it is not difficult for any wary tenant to investigate what in fact a "preferential lease" (it used to be called a "sweetheart lease" back in the day), is.

There are internet websites to read through,  there are blogs to be perused, there are free legal clinics, and odd as it may sound, many tenants know someone who knows someone who is an attorney.  I must spend a good hour a week fielding calls from other attorneys who don't practice in the area of landlord-tenant law, who refer their clients to me, and I gladly explain the laws and rules to these tenants.

No one (ok, not all that many people) want to see others move or be displaced.  Regardless of what the politicians say, on both sides of the aisle, things are not getting better and most of us live paycheck to paycheck.   Losing your apartment is not a joke.  

To attack, however, a law and concept that permits a landlord to lower the rent temporarily, and then revoke that concession, is to only invite the end of this concept (preferential rent, sweetheart), which is very  much like throwing the baby out with the bath water.