u/Blackdiamond27x

A few years ago, my partner and I moved into an apartment owned by someone who was very close to our family. We signed a lease and paid rent consistently for several years in nyc.

Location: NYC

Recently, after the owner passed away, attorneys/property management reviewed the building paperwork and discovered multiple units are rent stabilized and apparently some registrations/paperwork were not handled correctly for years.
Everyone is now getting new official rent stabilized renewal leases with recalculated legal rents.
Our rent dropped by almost $500/month under the corrected lease. Some other units only changed by small amounts. We also learned at least one other tenant received a reimbursement check for prior overpayments after the recalculations.

What’s confusing is that nobody has discussed reimbursements or prior overpayments with us, even though our rent adjustment was one of the largest in the building.

Some additional context:

there were occasional concessions/free months years ago,

the previous owner managed the building very informally,

the current owner seems overwhelmed and financially stressed,

and my siblings and I inherited a minority ownership interest in the property itself (though we are not involved in management or monthly finances).

I’m not trying to start a lawsuit or escalate things. I mainly want to understand:

Is it normal for some tenants to receive reimbursement checks while larger discrepancies remain unresolved?

Does receiving a corrected stabilized lease generally imply there may have been a prior overcharge?

Should this issue be raised directly, or is it common for these things to be addressed later?

Does inheriting a minority ownership interest complicate or weaken a potential reimbursement/overcharge claim?

Mostly looking for perspective from people familiar with NYC rent stabilization rather than aggressive legal advice.

Edit: FYI - I did the math and the delta on how much we “overpaid” is 22k over a few years.