Rent control / tenant rights questions

Question for anyone who knows about tenant rights

So Ridgewood has been the neighborhood that had the highest turnover of rent stabilized properties to non rent stabilized status across the whole city, for the past few years.

I live in a building that was mostly renovated in 2017/18, but lots of things were never finished and they claimed to have installed new features which never actually existed. The law says it must have a 75% refurb, amongst several other things for the status to change.

The landlord has just now applied at the end of 2023 for it to be officially destabilized.

We moved in 2021, and from my understanding that means that we should have had rent stabilization this entire time?

Does anyone know if we would be owed money by them from the period of early 2021-until now?

From my understanding we should have legal ground to win a court case as they have only just applied to change status, and have been unable to provide proof of any prior status change, despite us asking several times.

My rent has increased 30% in the past 2 years, from 2400 to 3100, whilst the building has had zero work done on it, and actually things have just gotten worse. Seems they’ve been exploiting us and charging waaaay above what they’re actually allowed if the building is in fact still under stabilized status.

The area has gone from over 6000 rent controlled properties to just over 1000 now left in just a few years

Anyone been in a similar situation? Has anyone used the ‘rent overcharge’ filing process? Anyone taken their landlord to court over this? Any advice?