On June 14, 2019, in one of the most recent ground breaking pieces of legislation, the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA) was passed into law, which significantly altered, to tenants’ benefit, many aspects of long standing decisional and statutory law.

Prior to the HSTPA, rental overcharge claims were generally limited to a four-year look back period for purposes of both determining the existence of an overcharge claim and the legal regulated rent. With the passing of the HSTPA, and specifically the changes introduced in Part F of the legislation, there was now, among many other changes, a six-year statute of limitations on calculation of overcharge claims with no imitation on the look back period to determine the legal rent. Rather, the courts were now required to consider all available rent history which was reasonably necessary to investigate overcharge claims and determine legal regulate rents. The HSTPA applied to all pending claims and thus courts began immediately applying the HSTPA retroactively to all cases.