Tenant discovers landlord secretly overcharged rent for months — she devised a clever plan to reclaim it

Picking a place to rent is mostly a straightforward process. With that being said, there are some finer details one should always look out for to avoid getting cheated. Carla Mia (@thanks_management) shared a video revealing how her landlord overcharged her for months and how she dealt with it. The video, which has amassed 2.9 million views and is stitched with a clip by @openigloo_nyc, shows her talking about the importance of requesting one's rental history from the state. Mia starts the video by saying, "This woman is 110% correct."

She continues, "And I'm gonna tell you how I caught my landlord overcharging me thousands of dollars this past year." Mia shared how she signed the lease for her apartment in December of 2022 and how she discovered that her apartment was rent-stabilized. The rent came out to $1850 for her two-bedroom apartment in the Lower East Side, which she thought was an amazing deal. Soon, it became time to renew the lease, but her landlord did not contact her to renew the lease, confusing her.

This confusion led her to do some research about the procedure for lease renewal with rent-stabilized apartments. She discovered that she was actually supposed to get her lease renewed three months before it ended. Mia clarified, "So you can see what the rent increases would be for a one-year lease versus a two-year lease. And then, you can make your decision based on that." The woman realized how her landlord had failed to do this and wanted to check if her apartment was actually rent-stabilized.

She went to the Department of Housing's (DOH) website and submitted a request for her apartment. Mia shared, "And then I also found a PDF that lists every single rent-stabilized apartment in New York City." The woman found her apartment on the list and was relieved. Three days later, she received information from the DOH about her rent history for the apartment. The woman shockingly discovered that her landlord claimed she was paying $1295 a month, which was way less than the $1850 she was actually paying.

The woman knew something fishy was going on, so she contacted the DOH to know what action she should take. Mia revealed that the DOH was actually helpful and that they would get to the bottom of what was going on with her rent. They informed her that she was overcharged and she could either handle it with her landlord or file a claim. Filing a claim would involve a court case and make things difficult for everybody involved. So, Mia decided that she would talk to the landlord and get things sorted out.

Mia called up her landlord and told him that she was ready to resign the lease. The landlord eagerly comes over to the apartment when she decides to confront him. She says, "I hit him with the DOH papers, and I was like, 'Would you care to explain?'" The landlord was naturally worried and wanted to avoid a court case, so he decided to settle with her. She revealed: "He ended up having to back pay me for the entire year, plus what was included in the overcharge for my security deposit." The amount came out to roughly $6000.

The renewed lease that she got had an amount that came out to $1468. She concluded the video by stating, "Do yourself a favor and just check. Your rent may be stabilized, or you could be overcharged and you're entitled to get your money back. And in this economy, lord knows that we all need it." People appreciated the woman's suggestions and shared what they did in the comments section. @maryracehl_eloho said, "I have a rent-stabilized apartment and I just submitted my rent history request. Thank you, Queen!"

You can follow Carla Mia (@thanks_management) on TikTok for more lifestyle content.

This article originally appeared 10 months ago.