regulatory status as it could then permanently deregulate the premises once the employee
vacates.
Secondly, the purported $2000 rent in the 2001 Crump lease was effectively illusory. Even if
petitioner were able to set the rent at what the free market called for, all indications are that
$2000 was in far excess of the market rate at the time. Assuming the leases proffered by
petitioner are true, the billed rent never passed $1050 in the seven years that elapsed. Thus,
under this scenario, the alleged $2000 rent can only be seen as an attempt to circumvent the rent
regulatory framework. Such a scenario is akin and perhaps even more egregious than that which
was prohibited in 390 West End Associates v Harel (298 AD2d 11 [1st Dept 2002]). In
Harel, the court emphasized the well recognized precept that an apartment cannot be
deregulated by private contract (Id. at 15; see also Draper v Georgia Properties,
Inc., 94 NY2d 809, 811 [1999] citing 9 NYCRR § 2520.13 ["an agreement by
the tenant to waive the benefit of any provision of the Rent Stabilization Law or this Code is
void"]). In that case, the landlord and tenant agreed to deregulate a rent stabilized apartment
based on the tenant's acknowledgment that he was not using the premises as his primary
residence (see Harel, 298 AD2d at 13).[FN6] The court determined that such an agreement
was offensive to public policy and untenable as it would "open the door to landlords and tenants
privately agreeing to deregulate rent stabilized units, whether for their mutual advantage or
plausibly at the landlord's behest, and to the indisputable diminution of the rent stabilization
regime that has clearly benefitted New York City for so many decades" (Id. at 16-17).