Thirteen tenants at 283–285 Albany Avenue in Crown Heights have hauled their landlord into court, filing a class-action lawsuit Thursday that accuses the owner of inventing pricey renovations on paper so apartments could be pulled out of rent stabilization and rents cranked way up. The tenants are asking a judge to put the disputed units back under rent regulation and to order repayment of what they say are thousands of dollars in illegal overcharges.
According to the complaint, the building’s rent-stabilized count did not just slip, it plunged. Tax and registration records show that the six-story property, built in 1941, had 52 of its 53 apartments registered as stabilized in 2010. By early 2025, that number had fallen to around 20, after a series of re-registrations and Individual Apartment Increase filings. The suit flags steep jumps in legal regulated rents, saying apartment 6E’s legal rent shot up 186% in 2018 and that other vacancy leases reflect IAIs worth tens of thousands of dollars. The landlord is identified as 283 Albany Equities LLC, a subsidiary of Shamco Management Corp., with tenant watchdog Housing Rights Initiative backing the case, as reported by Brooklyn Paper.
How IAIs Are Supposed to Work
Under New York’s rent rules, landlords can tack on an Individual Apartment Increase to the legal rent on a vacancy lease when they make real upgrades, like new appliances or full kitchen or bathroom overhauls. Those IAIs can cause a big jump in the legal rent. The system, however, leans heavily on owner self-certification and annual rental registration, which tenants and advocates say leaves plenty of room for abuse when paperwork claims do not match the work on the ground.
State guidance spells out how IAIs are meant to function and what documentation owners have to keep when they claim one. Lawyers for the Albany Avenue tenants say the dollar figures that were claimed at 283–285 Albany do not square with the modest work they say was actually done inside the units. For more on IAI rules and rent-increase procedures, see HCR.
City Records Show Maintenance Problems
Public records add another layer to the fight. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s online file for 283 Albany Avenue lists dozens of open violations, including orders to replace defective electrical outlets and to install working smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors. The city has also cited the building for broken windows, the need to repaint units, and the need to repair water leaks.
Those unresolved violations are now part of the tenants’ argument that apartments were never improved to the standard the landlord later certified when claiming IAIs. For a detailed look at the city’s open violations at the property, see the building record at HPD.
Shamco’s Recent Enforcement History
The company behind the building is not a stranger to state scrutiny. In 2024, the New York Attorney General entered into an Assurance of Discontinuance with Shamco Management Corp. following findings that the company engaged in discriminatory practices in the way it treated applicants who used housing vouchers. Under that agreement, Shamco had to adopt programmatic fixes and submit to monitoring.
Tenants at 283–285 Albany are pointing to that enforcement history as part of a broader case that the landlord’s operations deserve closer oversight now. The full agreement is available from the state, see the document from the Attorney General.
Precedent Shows Big Recoveries Are Possible
The new lawsuit is arriving in the middle of a broader wave of rent cases that have sometimes led to hefty paydays for tenants. A recent class action over alleged improper rent deregulation at Parker Towers in Queens ended with a multimillion-dollar settlement for hundreds of renters, after watchdogs and attorneys pieced together a pattern of overcharges and unlawful rent bumps.
Tenant advocates point to outcomes like Parker Towers as evidence that litigation can claw back years of overcharges and discourage other landlords from pushing the limits on rent law. For more on that settlement, see reporting in The Real Deal along with materials from tenant organizers.
What Tenants Are Asking And What Could Come Next
The Crown Heights plaintiffs want the court to re-regulate the contested apartments, require the landlord to issue corrected rent-stabilized leases, and return any alleged overcharges. Their attorneys say they plan to push both in court and through state housing agency channels for a full accounting of the claimed IAIs and a recalculation of the legal regulated rents.
Under standard practice at the state housing agency, overcharge complaints typically allow for a multi-year lookback and can result in refunds if rent hikes are found to violate the law. For now, there is no clear timetable for how quickly the Albany Avenue case will move forward, and the landlord did not immediately offer comment to reporters. For background on the administrative path that tenants can use in disputes like this, see HCR.
