{ "_meta": { "dataset": "Landlord Atlas 50-State Landlord-Tenant Law Dataset", "dataset_version": "1.28.1", "published_at": "2026-09-05T13:40:00Z", "license": "https://landlordatlas.com/data/license/", "attribution": "Landlord Atlas (https://landlordatlas.com) — cite by name, link the relevant page, and carry the record's verification date.", "disclaimer": "Landlord Atlas is not a law firm. This dataset provides general information about state landlord-tenant statutes for informational purposes only. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Use of this data does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change: rely on the citations and verification dates carried in each record, and confirm against the cited statute before acting.", "schema": "https://landlordatlas.com/data/schema.json", "changelog": "https://landlordatlas.com/data/changelog.json", "version_manifest": "https://landlordatlas.com/data/version.json", "contact": "contact@landlordatlas.com", "state": "New York", "state_code": "NY", "canonical_page": "https://landlordatlas.com/laws/new-york/", "per_state_url": "https://landlordatlas.com/data/states/ny.json" }, "record": { "state": "New York", "state_code": "NY", "last_verified": "2026-07-08", "verified_by_method": "Direct read of statute text on the official NY Senate legislation site (nysenate.gov): GOL 7-108 (full text), GOL 7-103 (full text read 2026-07-08 — confirmed subdivision structure: (1) trust/no commingling, (2) bank notice + 1% admin fee when interest-bearing, (2-a) 6+ unit interest-bearing mandate, (3) waiver void), RPL 238-a and RPL 226-c (official-source text confirmed via nysenate.gov), cross-checked against the NY Attorney General's Residential Tenants' Rights Guide (ag.ny.gov) and NYC Rent Guidelines Board guidance.", "pending_legislation": [ { "bill": "S4856 (2025-2026 session)", "summary": "Would amend GOL 7-108(1-a)(e) to extend the security-deposit return/itemized-statement deadline from 14 days to 30 days after the tenant vacates.", "status": "In Senate Judiciary Committee. Referred 2025-02-13; re-referred 2026-01-07 for the second year of the 2025-2026 session (routine). Assembly same-as: A2652. Not enacted as of the checked date.", "checked": "2026-07-08", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null } ], "security_deposits": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-12", "max_deposit": { "months_rent": 1, "conditions": "The cap covers non-rent-stabilized dwelling units under GOL 7-108(1-a). Rent-stabilized and ETPA-covered units run on a separate section, GOL 7-107 — rewritten by Chapter 436 of the Laws of 2025 to carry the same one-month cap and HSTPA-style return scheme for leases and renewals entered into on or after November 15, 2025 (earlier stabilized leases stay under the prior rules until renewal).\n\nExceptions exist for registered seasonal-use dwelling units and owner-occupied cooperative apartments, and separate rules apply to certain licensed senior/care facilities." }, "return_deadline_days": 14, "return_deadline_conditions": "The landlord must send an itemized statement giving the basis for any amount kept and return the rest of the deposit. The clock starts the day the tenant moves out, and the tenant does not have to supply a forwarding address first.\n\nWithin 14 days after the tenant has vacated, the landlord must provide that itemized statement and return the remaining deposit. There is no forwarding-address precondition anywhere in the statute.", "itemization_required": true, "itemization_rules": "The 14-day itemized statement must state the basis for each amount retained. Deductions are limited to non-payment of rent, damage beyond normal wear and tear, unpaid utility charges payable to the landlord under the lease, and moving/storage of the tenant's belongings; ordinary wear and tear and damage caused by a prior tenant may not be charged. In any dispute, the landlord bears the burden of proving the reasonableness of the amount retained (GOL 7-108(1-a)(f)).", "separate_account_required": true, "interest_required": true, "interest_rules": "In a building with six or more family dwelling units, the deposit must sit in an interest-bearing account at the prevailing rate, and the interest belongs to the tenant apart from a 1% annual administrative fee the landlord may keep (GOL 7-103(2), (2-a)).\n\nDeposits are trust funds that may not be commingled (GOL 7-103(1)). If the deposit is placed in a bank, the landlord must notify the tenant in writing of the bank's name and address and the deposit amount, and the bank must be located in New York (GOL 7-103(2)).\n\nWhenever the deposit is in an interest-bearing account — mandatory at 6+ units, voluntary below — the landlord may retain 1% per annum of the deposited sum as an administrative fee in lieu of all other administrative and custodial expenses. The balance of the interest belongs to the tenant, held in trust or paid annually (GOL 7-103(2)).", "pet_deposit_rules": "No separate statutory category; because no deposit or advance may exceed one month's rent in total, a pet deposit cannot be charged on top of a full one-month security deposit.", "nonrefundable_fees_allowed": false, "penalty_for_violation": "A landlord who misses the 14-day deadline forfeits any right to keep any part of the deposit. A willful violation adds punitive damages of up to twice the amount of the deposit (GOL 7-108(1-a)(e), (g)).\n\nAny violation of subdivision 1-a makes the landlord liable for actual damages. Rights under the section are non-waivable (GOL 7-108(3)).", "tenant_forwarding_address_duty": null, "citations": [ { "statute": "GOL 7-108", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-108", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1-a), (3)" }, { "statute": "GOL 7-103", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-103", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2), (2-a)" }, { "statute": "GOL 7-107 (as rewritten by Ch. 436 of the Laws of 2025, S952-B — rent-stabilized/ETPA units; leases and renewals on or after 2025-11-15)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-107", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York caps security deposits at one month's rent for non-rent-stabilized units, and the landlord must return the deposit with an itemized statement within 14 days of the tenant vacating — miss the deadline and the entire deposit must be returned. Deposits are trust funds held in a separate New York bank account (interest-bearing in buildings of six or more units, with the landlord keeping at most a 1% administrative fee). Tenants have a statutory right to a move-in inspection and to a pre-move-out inspection with an opportunity to cure noted conditions before deductions are taken. Deductions are limited to unpaid rent, damage beyond normal wear and tear, unpaid lease utilities, and moving/storage; the landlord bears the burden of proving any retention is reasonable, and willful violations carry punitive damages up to twice the deposit. These 2019 HSTPA protections cannot be waived. Since November 15, 2025 the same protections reach rent-stabilized and ETPA apartments through a rewritten GOL 7-107 — but only for leases and renewals signed from that date, so stabilized tenancies phase in as they renew.", "notes": [ { "label": "The one-month cap covers prepaid rent, not just the deposit", "text": "Any 'advance' — such as prepaid last month's rent — counts toward the same one-month ceiling. A landlord cannot stack first month's rent, last month's rent, and a full security deposit." }, { "label": "Two statutory exceptions to the cap", "text": "Registered seasonal-use dwelling units (GOL 7-108(4)-(5)) and owner-occupied co-op purchases (GOL 7-108(6)) sit outside these rules." }, { "label": "Rent-stabilized units: the separate section now mirrors these rules", "text": "Deposits for NYC rent-stabilized and ETPA-covered units are governed by GOL 7-107, not by the GOL 7-108 rules described on this page. Chapter 436 of the Laws of 2025 rewrote § 7-107 to carry the same substance inline: a one-month cap, full refundability with the same limited deductions, pre-occupancy and pre-vacating inspections with a right to cure, the 14-day itemized return with total forfeiture for a missed deadline, the landlord's burden of proof, actual damages plus up to twice the deposit for willful violations, and an anti-waiver clause. Application is prospective by lease — the new rules govern leases, rental agreements, and renewals entered into on or after November 15, 2025 — so coverage phases in as stabilized leases renew. The rewrite also reshaped successor liability on a building sale: a grantee or assignee is now liable for deposits of which it has actual knowledge, with broad deemed-knowledge triggers (deposits banked in the six months before closing, acknowledged in a lease in effect at closing, or documented by the tenant), where the old section imposed liability whether or not the deposit was received. Scope note: § 7-107 applies only to units under the NYC rent stabilization law of 1969 or the ETPA of 1974, and § 7-108's own scope clause excludes units under the city rent-control laws." }, { "label": "A pending bill would stretch the 14-day deadline to 30 — it is not law", "text": "S4856 would extend the return-and-itemized-statement deadline from 14 days to 30 days. It is tracked here as pending legislation only; the 14-day figure on this page is current law and does not reflect the bill." }, { "label": "No forwarding address required — the clock runs from move-out", "text": "The blank forwarding-address field means GOL 7-108 imposes no such duty, not that the tenant must do something first. The 14 days run from the date the tenant vacates regardless." } ] }, "rent_increase_notice": { "notice_days_month_to_month": 30, "notice_varies_by_increase_size": "Written notice is required only when the landlord proposes an increase of 5% or more, or will not renew. Its length then scales with how long the tenant has lived there, not with the size of the increase (RPL 226-c).\n\nThe ladder is 30 days if the tenant has occupied less than one year and has no lease of at least one year; 60 days if occupancy or lease term is at least one year but less than two; and 90 days if occupancy or lease term is two years or more. If proper notice is not given, the tenant may remain at the existing rent until the required notice period expires.", "fixed_term_rules": "Rent cannot be raised during a fixed term unless the lease itself provides for it. It can be raised at renewal, on the same notice rules that govern any other increase.\n\nRPL 226-c applies to renewal offers on expiring leases as well as month-to-month tenancies, so a renewal with an increase of 5% or more requires the same 30/60/90-day written notice keyed to tenancy length.", "rent_control_state": true, "rent_control_details": "New York runs several rent-regulation regimes at once. Rent-controlled and rent-stabilized units follow DHCR rules with annual increases set by Rent Guidelines Boards, and a separate 2024 Good Cause Eviction law limits increases in covered units.\n\nThe stabilization regimes are the NYC Rent Stabilization Law and the Emergency Tenant Protection Act, administered by DHCR and significantly strengthened by the 2019 HSTPA.\n\nThe Good Cause Eviction law (RPL Article 6-A) applies in NYC and in localities that opt in. For covered units, a rent increase above the lesser of 5% plus CPI or 10% is presumptively unreasonable and can defeat an eviction for nonpayment of the increase.", "local_control_preempted": false, "rent_regulation_preemption": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-12", "posture": "not_preempted", "posture_qualifier": null, "citations": [ { "statute": "Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 § 3 (Unconsol. Laws § 8623)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/ETP/3", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York expressly authorizes local rent regulation — any city, town, or village may opt into rent stabilization under the Emergency Tenant Protection Act by declaring a housing emergency where the rental vacancy rate is five percent or less, an option the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act extended statewide." }, "frequency_limits": null, "citations": [ { "statute": "RPL 226-c", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/226-C", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(2)" }, { "statute": "RPL Art. 6-A (Good Cause Eviction, incl. 216)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/A6-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York landlords must give written notice before raising rent 5% or more (or declining to renew): 30 days for tenancies under one year, 60 days at one to two years, and 90 days at two years or more, counting the longer of occupancy or lease term. If the notice is late, the tenant may stay at the old rent until the full notice period runs. New York is a rent-regulated state — rent-stabilized and rent-controlled units follow DHCR and Rent Guidelines Board limits instead of the market — and the 2024 Good Cause Eviction law makes increases above the lesser of 5% plus inflation or 10% presumptively unreasonable in covered units in NYC and opt-in localities. Local rent regulation is expressly authorized, not preempted.", "notes": [ { "label": "30 days is the bottom rung of a 30/60/90 ladder", "text": "RPL 226-c governs rent increases directly — unlike states where the figure is derived from termination-notice rules — and 30 days is only its minimum tier. The full 30/60/90-day ladder, keyed to length of tenancy, is what actually applies." }, { "label": "Increases under 5% need no statutory notice in unregulated units", "text": "The RPL 226-c notice requirement is triggered only at 5% or more, so a smaller increase on an unregulated unit carries no statutory notice period." }, { "label": "Good Cause Eviction does not cover every unit", "text": "The Good Cause Eviction rules carry coverage exemptions — small landlords, newer buildings, and high-rent units among them — so the increase standard does not reach all tenancies in a covered locality." } ] }, "late_fees": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-12", "statutory_cap": "$50 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is less", "grace_period_days": 5, "must_be_in_lease": true, "daily_fees_allowed": "Daily fees are effectively prohibited beyond the cap, because total late charges for one late payment can never exceed the lesser of $50 or 5% of monthly rent.\n\nDisguised structures, such as 'discounts' for on-time payment, have been struck down as illegal late fees.", "reasonableness_standard": null, "citations": [ { "statute": "RPL 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(2), (2-a), (3)" }, { "statute": "GOL 5-328(3) (dishonored-check charge; subdivision (3)(b) added by Ch. 431 of the Laws of 2025, A56-B)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/5-328", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(a)-(b)" } ], "summary_plain": "New York caps residential late fees at $50 or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is less, and no fee may be demanded unless rent remains unpaid five days after its due date — a statutory grace period that applies statewide. Any lease provision waiving or limiting these protections is void as against public policy, and courts have struck down workarounds such as inflated rents with 'on-time discounts' as disguised late fees. Late fees also cannot be recovered as 'rent' in a summary nonpayment eviction proceeding (RPAPL 702), so they must be pursued separately. Cooperative housing corporations have a limited carve-out allowing up to 8% of the monthly maintenance fee where the proprietary lease provides for it. Bounced-check fees run on their own track since October 16, 2025: no charge at all unless the lease provides for one, capped at the greater of the landlord's actual returned-check cost or $20, with substantiation owed on request above $20 (RPL 238-a(2-a)).", "notes": [ { "label": "The cap and the grace period both date to the 2019 HSTPA", "text": "New York's $50-or-5% ceiling and its five-day grace period were created by the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act." }, { "label": "The lease requirement is contract law — and the cap beats the lease", "text": "A late fee the lease does not provide for cannot be demanded at all, which is ordinary contract law rather than a late-fee statute. The statutory cap then applies even to fees the lease does spell out." }, { "label": "No reasonableness test — the hard cap supersedes it", "text": "The blank reasonableness field reflects that New York's fixed cap displaces any general reasonableness analysis of the fee, rather than meaning no standard exists." }, { "label": "Bounced-check fees got their own rule in late 2025", "text": "Since October 16, 2025, RPL 238-a(2-a) (added by Ch. 431 of the Laws of 2025) bars any charge for a rent check dishonored for insufficient funds unless the lease provides for one, and caps a lease-based charge at the greater of the landlord's actual returned-check costs or the $20 figure in GOL 5-328(3) — with the landlord obliged, on the tenant's request, to substantiate any charge above $20 against its actual costs. A companion amendment, GOL 5-328(3)(b), gives landlords express authority to collect the charge on those same terms, resolving the old uncertainty about residential-rent NSF fees. The rule does not apply to a co-op shareholder's own maintenance, but does protect a shareholder's tenants and subtenants. This is a separate clock and cap from the $50-or-5% late-fee ceiling." } ] }, "entry_notice": { "notice_hours": null, "notice_standard": "No New York statute sets a fixed advance-notice period for landlord entry. The controlling standard is reasonable prior notice at a reasonable time, with the tenant's consent for non-emergency entry.\n\nThat standard is grounded in the covenant of quiet enjoyment and case law. The NY Attorney General's official guidance treats roughly 24 hours as reasonable for inspections and about one week for repairs, with no notice needed in emergencies.", "permitted_reasons": "A landlord may enter to provide necessary or agreed repairs or services, to enter as the lease provides, and to show the unit to prospective purchasers or tenants.\n\nEach of those entries takes reasonable notice, at reasonable times, and the tenant's consent, which may not be unreasonably withheld. The landlord's remedy for a refusal is a court order, not forced entry.", "emergency_exception": true, "time_of_day_restrictions": null, "citations": [ { "statute": "NY Attorney General, Residential Tenants' Rights Guide (official guidance; no entry-notice statute exists)", "url": "https://ag.ny.gov/publications/residential-tenants-rights-guide", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPL 235-b (warranty of habitability / possessory-rights framework)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York has no statute requiring a specific number of hours' notice before a landlord enters an occupied unit; the statewide standard is reasonable prior notice, at a reasonable time, with the tenant's consent, except in emergencies. The Attorney General's official guidance treats about 24 hours as reasonable for inspections and about a week for planned repairs, and courts enforce the standard through the covenant of quiet enjoyment — a landlord without a reserved right of entry has no common-law right to enter at all. Leases commonly specify 24 or 48 hours, and rent-stabilized units and some localities layer on additional access rules.", "notes": [ { "label": "The 24-hour figure is official guidance, not a statute", "text": "The blank hours field means no New York statute fixes an entry-notice period. The roughly 24 hours commonly quoted comes from the Attorney General's guidance, and the distinction between guidance and statutory text matters." }, { "label": "RPL 235-b is not an entry statute", "text": "The Attorney General's guide is the official state source articulating the reasonable-notice standard. RPL 235-b is cited alongside it as the statutory framework for the tenant's possessory rights, not as a source of any entry-notice rule." }, { "label": "Local rules layer on top — and are not captured here", "text": "Local ordinances, including New York City's rules on showings of rent-stabilized units, are outside the scope of this page. Check local law in addition to the statewide standard." } ] }, "eviction_process": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-12", "notice_nonpayment_days": 14, "notice_nonpayment_rules": "Before filing a nonpayment case the landlord must serve a written demand for the rent requiring the tenant, in the alternative, to pay or to give up possession (RPAPL 711(2)). The pre-2019 three-day demand, and the oral-demand option, are gone.\n\nThe statute requires that 'a written demand of the rent has been made with at least fourteen days' notice requiring, in the alternative, the payment of the rent, or the possession of the premises,' served as prescribed in RPAPL 735 (personal delivery; substituted delivery to a suitable person residing or employed at the property; or conspicuous-place service — each of the latter two followed by certified AND first-class mailings, with service complete on filing proof of service). The 2019 HSTPA put this written 14-day demand in place of the old 3-day demand.\n\nDays are CALENDAR days: the General Construction Law counts 'calendar days exclusive of the calendar day from which the reckoning is made' (GCL 20), and a period ending on a Saturday, Sunday, or public holiday rolls to the next business day (GCL 25-a).\n\nA separate, earlier duty applies as well: if rent is not received within FIVE days of the due date, the landlord must send a certified-mail notice of nonpayment, and failure to send it 'may be used as an affirmative defense' in the nonpayment eviction (RPL 235-e(d)).\n\nThe cure ladder is unusually tenant-favorable and runs to the very end. Payment of the full rent due at any time PRIOR TO THE HEARING 'shall be accepted by the landlord and renders moot' the nonpayment ground (RPAPL 731(4)). Even after judgment and warrant, the court SHALL vacate the warrant on tender or deposit of the full rent due at any time before execution, unless the landlord shows the rent was withheld in bad faith (RPAPL 749(3)).\n\nOnly 'rent' — the amount charged for use and occupancy — may be sought in the proceeding; late fees and other charges cannot be added regardless of lease language (RPAPL 702).", "notice_lease_violation_days": null, "notice_lease_violation_rules": "No statewide statute sets a pre-filing cure-or-quit period for lease violations in unregulated tenancies. A holdover for breach rests on terminating the tenancy under the lease's own notice-to-cure and termination clauses, and for rent-regulated units on DHCR regulatory notices.\n\nThe statutory cure right instead arrives POST-JUDGMENT: where the proceeding 'is based upon a claim that the tenant or lessee has breached a provision of the lease, the court shall grant a thirty day stay of issuance of the warrant, during which time the respondent may correct such breach' (RPAPL 753(4), extended from 10 to 30 days by the 2019 HSTPA and applicable statewide).\n\nMonth-to-month termination predicates are separate again: 30 days' written notice in NYC (RPL 232-a); outside NYC, RPL 232-b as amended now governs the TENANT's (and non-residential landlord's) one-month notice, while a residential landlord's termination or non-renewal statewide runs through the RPL 226-c ladder — 30/60/90 days keyed to length of occupancy, as set out in the rent-increase notice rules on this page.", "unconditional_quit_grounds": "Use of the premises 'as a bawdy-house, or house or place of assignation for lewd persons, or for purposes of prostitution, or for any illegal trade or manufacture, or other illegal business' is itself a ground for a summary proceeding (RPAPL 711(5)) with no statutory cure period. Under RPAPL 715, an owner or tenant within 200 feet, a corporation organized for the suppression of vice, or an authorized enforcement agency may serve notice on the owner/landlord requiring a removal proceeding; if the owner fails to apply within five days or to prosecute in good faith, the notice-giver may bring the proceeding directly. New York otherwise has no Arizona-style 'material and irreparable breach' fast track — non-illegal-use breaches go through holdover procedure with the RPAPL 753(4) 30-day post-judgment cure stay.", "court_and_action": "A 'special proceeding' to recover possession of real property under RPAPL Article 7 — commonly a 'summary proceeding,' filed as a nonpayment or holdover petition. Venue lies where the property sits; the courts are the county court, a village police justice's court, a justice (town/village) court, a court of civil jurisdiction in a city (in New York City, the Civil Court's Housing Part), or a district court (RPAPL 701). Commenced by petition and notice of petition (RPAPL 731); CPLR special-proceeding rules fill the gaps.", "filing_to_hearing": "Two tracks. NONPAYMENT, in courts whose appellate-division rules adopt RPAPL 732 (including the New York City Civil Court): the notice of petition is returnable before the clerk within 10 days after service; the tenant has 10 days from service to answer; if the tenant answers, trial is set 'not less than three nor more than eight days after joinder of issue'; if the tenant defaults, 'the judge shall render judgment in favor of the petitioner and may stay the issuance of the warrant for a period of not to exceed ten days' (RPAPL 732). HOLDOVERS, and nonpayment where 732 is not adopted: the notice of petition and petition are served 'at least ten and not more than seventeen days before the time at which the petition is noticed to be heard' (RPAPL 733(1)).", "writ_and_lockout": "The possession writ is the 'warrant of eviction,' directed to the sheriff, or to a constable or marshal of the city or town (in NYC, city marshals), describing the property and stating the earliest execution date (RPAPL 749(1)). In a contested nonpayment case under RPAPL 732, issuance of the warrant may not be stayed more than 5 days from the determination except under RPAPL 753; after default, any stay is capped at 10 days. Execution is slow by design: the officer 'shall give at least fourteen days' notice, in writing' before evicting, must execute 'on a business day between the hours of sunrise and sunset,' and must check for companion animals and arrange their care (RPAPL 749(2), as rewritten by the 2019 HSTPA — the old 72-hour notice is gone). In New York City the marshal must also post the notice of eviction and file it electronically with the court (RPAPL 749-a) — a duty in force through June 30, 2028, its sunset having been extended from June 30, 2026 by Chapter 137 of the Laws of 2026. The court retains power to stay or vacate the warrant 'for good cause shown prior to the execution thereof,' must vacate it on tender or deposit of the full rent due before execution absent bad-faith withholding (RPAPL 749(3)), may stay issuance up to ONE YEAR for extreme hardship conditioned on ongoing rent deposits into court (RPAPL 753(1)-(2), inapplicable if the tenant is shown to be objectionable), and must grant the 30-day cure stay in lease-breach holdovers (753(4)). Waivers of 753's protections are void (753(5)).", "appeal_window_days": 30, "timeline_uncontested": "Roughly 38 days from serving the rent demand to the earliest lawful lockout, or five and a half to six and a half weeks once service, filing, and warrant-processing days are added. That is a statutory minimum, not a promise.\n\nThe minimum is derived from the figures on this page. The chain runs: a certified-mail nonpayment notice after day 5 (RPL 235-e(d)), then the 14-day written rent demand (RPAPL 711(2)), then the petition filed and the notice of petition served, returnable within 10 days, with the tenant's 10-day answer window (RPAPL 732), then default judgment and issuance of the warrant (the discretionary stay of up to 10 days assumed waived), then the officer's mandatory 14 days' written notice, and finally the lockout on a business day between sunrise and sunset (RPAPL 749(2)) — that is, 14 + 10 + 14 = 38 days.\n\nContested cases (3-8-day trial setting, adjournments), the pay-and-stay rights running through execution, hardship stays up to a year under RPAPL 753, and NYC Housing Part congestion all extend it, often substantially.", "self_help_prohibited": true, "self_help_rules": "Locking a tenant out, shutting off essential services, or using force is 'unlawful eviction' in New York — a class A misdemeanor, with each violation a separate offense (RPAPL 768(1)). The only lawful removal path is a warrant of eviction executed by the sheriff, constable, or marshal.\n\nThe offense reaches evicting or attempting to evict an occupant who has lawfully occupied the unit for 30 consecutive days or longer, or who holds a lease, by force or threat of force, by interrupting or discontinuing essential services or other conduct disturbing the occupant's comfort, repose, peace or quiet, or by lockout-type conduct such as removing the occupant's possessions, removing the entrance door, or changing the locks without providing a key (RPAPL 768(1), added statewide by the 2019 HSTPA).\n\nCivil penalties run 'not less than one thousand nor more than ten thousand dollars for each violation,' the owner must take all reasonable and necessary action to restore the occupant on request, and failure to restore draws up to $100 per day for up to six months (RPAPL 768(2)). Separately, a person disseized or put out of real property 'in a forcible or unlawful manner' may 'recover treble damages in an action' against the wrongdoer (RPAPL 853).", "citations": [ { "statute": "RPAPL 711", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/711", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(2), (5)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 731", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/731", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(4)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 732", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/732", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 733", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/733", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 735", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/735", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(2)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 749", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/749", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(3)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 749-a (NYC marshal posting and e-filing duty; sunset extended to 2028-06-30 by Ch. 137 of the Laws of 2026, A10338)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A10338", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 753", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/753", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(5)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 768", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/768", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(2)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 853", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/853", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 702", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/702", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)" }, { "statute": "RPL 235-e", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-E", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(d)" }, { "statute": "CPLR 5513", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CVP/5513", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(a)" } ], "summary_plain": "New York's eviction process — a 'summary proceeding' under RPAPL Article 7 that is anything but summary since the 2019 HSTPA — starts, for nonpayment, with a certified-mail notice once rent is five days late and then a written 14-day rent demand (the old 3-day/oral demand is gone). The case is filed as a nonpayment or holdover petition in the local court (in New York City, the Civil Court's Housing Part); on the nonpayment fast track the tenant has 10 days to answer, trial comes 3 to 8 days after an answer, and a default produces judgment with at most a 10-day stay. The tenant can stop a nonpayment case cold by paying the full rent due — payment before the hearing must be accepted and moots the case, and even after judgment the court must vacate the warrant if the full rent is tendered any time before the lockout, unless the rent was withheld in bad faith. Only rent, never late fees, can be collected in the proceeding. The warrant of eviction is executed by a sheriff, constable, or marshal who must first give 14 days' written notice and may act only on a business day between sunrise and sunset — so even a flawless uncontested case runs roughly five and a half to six and a half weeks from rent demand to lockout. Lease-breach holdovers carry a mandatory 30-day post-judgment cure window, courts can stay eviction up to a year for extreme hardship (with rent deposited into court), and appeals follow the ordinary 30-day civil window. Self-help is criminal: lockouts, utility shutoffs, or force against anyone in lawful occupancy 30 days or more is a class A misdemeanor carrying $1,000-$10,000 civil penalties per violation, a duty to restore the tenant, and exposure to treble damages.", "notes": [ { "label": "Stale-source trap: the 3-day demand and 72-hour notice are dead", "text": "The pre-2019 three-day rent demand and 72-hour warrant notice still saturate secondary sources. Both are now 14 days, and the rent demand must be WRITTEN." }, { "label": "Calendar days, with weekend and holiday deadlines rolling forward", "text": "Periods are counted in calendar days, excluding the day from which the reckoning is made, and a deadline landing on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday rolls to the next business day (GCL 20, 25-a). The eviction article itself is silent on counting, so the General Construction Law controls." }, { "label": "The 10-day answer track is not statewide", "text": "RPAPL 732 applies only in courts whose appellate-division rules adopt it — they do for the New York City Civil Court and most local civil courts. Elsewhere the RPAPL 733(1) 10-to-17-day window governs, so the 10-day answer should never be stated as a universal New York rule." }, { "label": "The 30-day appeal window is the general civil rule, not an eviction rule", "text": "It comes from CPLR 5513(a) and runs from service of the judgment with notice of entry, not from any eviction-specific event. A stay pending appeal is not automatic." }, { "label": "Good Cause disclosures ride in the rent demand — and carry a sunset", "text": "RPAPL 711(2) currently also requires Good Cause Eviction disclosures (RPL art. 6-A) in the rent demand, and the current version of the statute carries a sunset structure — it is 'effective until June 15, 2034.' Good Cause applies in New York City and in localities that opt in; it is flagged here, not built into the figures." }, { "label": "COVID-era stays and defenses are deliberately left out", "text": "ERAP stays and the Tenant Safe Harbor Act's pandemic defenses are expired or exhausted, and are not reflected anywhere on this page." }, { "label": "Rent-regulated tenancies carry DHCR notices on top", "text": "Rent-stabilized and rent-controlled tenancies require DHCR regulatory predicate notices — a notice to cure, for example — in addition to everything described here. Their existence is flagged; their figures are not shown here." }, { "label": "Manufactured-home parks are a separate scheme", "text": "Manufactured-home parks run on RPL 233, with materially different timelines. That scheme is out of scope for this page and should not be conflated with the figures here." }, { "label": "No statewide cure period for lease violations — silence, not zero", "text": "The lease-violation field is blank because no statewide statute prescribes a pre-filing cure-or-quit period for unregulated tenancies. New York's 30-day cure right instead arrives after judgment, under RPAPL 753(4)." }, { "label": "The uncontested timeline is a derivation, never a promise", "text": "It is built by adding the statutory minimums cited here and must be read with that framing — a floor, not a forecast for any particular case." }, { "label": "Source and currency of these figures", "text": "Every figure here reflects the official text of RPAPL 711, 731, 732, 733, 735, 749, 753, 768, 853, 702 and 715, RPL 235-e, 232-a and 232-b, CPLR 5513(a), and GCL 20 and 25-a as published on nysenate.gov and current to July 21, 2026. The four statutes the answers rest on — RPAPL 711, 732, 733 and 749 — are quoted from that official text word for word. The RPAPL 749-a posting and e-filing duty and its 2028 sunset reflect Chapter 137 of the Laws of 2026 as published on nysenate.gov on August 12, 2026." } ] }, "lease_termination": { "topic_verified": "2026-09-02", "verified_by_method": "Direct reading of the New York consolidated laws in the Senate's own legislative text service, which returns each section with its own currency fields; the Real Property Law edition read was active June 12, 2026. Read in full: Real Property Law Article 7 enumerated from the law tree and read section by section (55 sections, 220 through 238-a), Article 6-A in full (sections 210 through 218), Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Article 7 enumerated in full (32 sections), General Obligations Law section 5-905, Military Law Article 13 in full (41 sections, 300 through 328) including sections 301, 301-b, 309 and 310, and Social Services Law section 459-a, the definition the domestic-violence termination section incorporates. Each section's own published-date ledger was read as its amendment history, each changed version was retrieved and compared line by line against its predecessor — which showed three apparent amendments to be expired-flag cleanups rather than enactments — and each real change was traced to its enacting bill and read from the bill's own text; the enacting acts read this way were the 2024 budget act creating Article 6-A, the 2023 act creating the deceased-tenant termination section, and the 2025 act adding the dishonored-check fee rule. Currency was closed by an enumerated check of every Real Property Law section with an active date in 2026, of which only two exist and neither sits in Article 7 or Article 6-A. Pending measures were typed from each bill's own action list on the legislature's own bill pages, session-scoped to the 2025 to 2026 term. Court decisions read in full: Holy Properties Ltd., L.P. v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., 87 N.Y.2d 130 (1995), on the official reporter text, and 14 E. 4th St. Unit 509 LLC v. Toporek, 203 A.D.3d 17 (1st Dep't 2022), on the Law Reporting Bureau's text; the federal 30-day notice picture was searched across the Court of Appeals, all four Appellate Division departments and the Appellate Terms on September 2, 2026.", "governing_law_plain": "Residential termination rules sit in several bodies of law. The Real Property Law carries the notice statutes: section 226-c states the landlord's tiered notice statewide, section 232-a governs removal of a monthly tenant in the city of New York, section 232-b gives the tenant outside the city a one-month right, and section 228 covers tenancies at will and at sufferance. Article 6-A of the same law is the Good Cause Eviction Law, automatic in the city of New York and elsewhere only where a village, town or city adopts it. The Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law supplies the possession remedy and, by the cross-reference in section 232-a, the delivery rules for the city's termination notice. Beyond those two, the General Obligations Law carries the reminder that must precede an automatic-renewal clause, the Military Law carries the state servicemember act, and the Social Services Law supplies the definition that decides who may end a lease as a victim of domestic violence. Which body governs a given notice turns on where the premises are and which side is giving it.", "applicability": { "coverage_plain": "Two of the notice rules are geographic. The tiered landlord notice in section 226-c applies everywhere in the state. The tenant's one-month notice in section 232-b applies only to premises outside the city of New York, and no statute states a period for a tenant inside the city. The Good Cause Eviction Law applies automatically in the city of New York and elsewhere only where the local legislative body has adopted it by local law; outside an adopting locality no ground is required to end a tenancy or let a term expire.", "switch_plain": "The switch is the address. Premises inside the city of New York fall under section 232-a and, for the ground requirement, under Article 6-A automatically. Premises outside it fall under section 232-b, and Article 6-A reaches them only if the village, town or city has adopted the article by local law. The state housing agency is the statutory publisher of the list of adopting localities, together with each one's high-rent exemption figure and its own definition of a small landlord, in an annual publication due by August 1.", "affects": [ "periodic_notice", "just_cause", "notice_service" ] }, "periodic_notice": { "landlord_days": null, "landlord_days_null_reason": "tiered_no_default", "tenant_days": null, "tenant_days_null_reason": "geographic_split", "counting_anchor": [ "before_period_end", "calendar_month", "from_service" ], "anchor_plain": "The tenant's period is stated only for premises outside the city of New York, where one month's notice is required; inside the city no statute states a tenant period. The landlord's tiered periods are stated as a minimum number of days of notice against a decision not to renew, and sections 232-a and 232-b frame the count against the end of the term rather than forward from delivery, so a monthly tenancy ends at a period boundary. That one month is a calendar month before the term expires, not 30 counted days, which is why a notice given mid-month reaches the end of the month after next. Tenancies at will and at sufferance run on a different anchor: the 30 days in section 228 run forward from service, and the landlord may re-enter or sue at the expiration of 30 days after the notice was served.", "alignment_required": "unstated", "notice_ceiling_plain": null, "tiers_plain": "The landlord's period is set by how long the tenant has been there, measured as the longer of the tenant's cumulative occupancy and the length of the tenancy in each lease: at least 30 days where the tenant has occupied the unit for less than a year and has no lease term of at least a year; at least 60 days where the tenant has been there more than one year but less than two, or holds a lease term of at least one year but less than two; and at least 90 days after more than two years, or with a lease term of two years or more.", "tier_conditions": [ "tenure", "tenancy_length" ], "waivable": "no", "waivable_plain": "Section 226-c applies notwithstanding any provision of a lease or other tenancy agreement to the contrary, so a lease cannot shorten the landlord's period. That bar is section-specific rather than chapter-wide. Where the Good Cause Eviction Law applies, section 218 separately makes void any agreement by which a tenant waives or modifies the rights that article gives.", "mechanism": "standalone_statute", "common_law_fill_plain": null, "symmetry_mandate": false, "rules_plain": "A landlord who does not intend to renew a residential tenancy must give written notice of at least 30, 60 or 90 days, set by how long the tenant has lived there; the same schedule governs a rent increase of five percent or more, which belongs to the rent-increase page. Missing the period does not void the termination: the tenancy continues on its existing terms from the day the landlord gave actual written notice until the period has run, whatever the lease says. Inside the city of New York a monthly tenant may not be removed for holding over unless the landlord serves a notice stating that the landlord elects to terminate and that summary proceedings will follow if the tenant does not leave on the day named. A cooperative housing corporation owes no such notice to a tenant who is a shareholder or unit owner of the corporation, unless the corporation is one of those named in the private housing finance law. Outside the city of New York a tenant may end a monthly tenancy by notifying the landlord at least one month before the term expires, and no notice at all is needed to end a tenancy for a definite term; inside the city no statute states a period for the tenant. A tenancy at will or at sufferance is ended by a written notice of at least 30 days requiring the tenant to leave. The two sides are not symmetric by design: the landlord's obligation is tiered and statewide, the tenant's is a flat month and only outside the city." }, "just_cause": { "posture": "conditional", "coverage_route": "multiple", "coverage_plain": "The Good Cause Eviction Law applies in the city of New York by the statute's own terms, and elsewhere only where a village, town or city adopts it by local law. Where it applies it reaches all housing accommodations except fifteen categories: premises of a small landlord, meaning ten units in the state unless the adopting locality sets another figure; an owner-occupied building with no more than ten units; a sublet where the sublessor wants the unit for personal use; occupancy incident to employment that has lawfully ended; units already under rent or eviction regulation; income-restricted units; condominium and cooperative units and units under an attorney-general offering plan; new construction, for thirty years after a temporary or permanent certificate of occupancy issued on or after January 1, 2009; seasonal dwellings; hospitals, continuing-care and assisted-living residences, adult care and senior residences and not-for-profit independent retirement communities; manufactured homes in a manufactured home park; hotel rooms and transient class B use; dormitories; religious-institution housing; and units renting above the adopting locality's high-rent figure or, where the local law sets none, above 245 percent of the fair market rent the federal housing department publishes. A landlord that is an entity and cannot name every natural person holding a direct or indirect interest in it does not qualify as a small landlord. As of a March 2026 publication by the Attorney General's office, Albany, Ithaca, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Rochester had adopted the article; that publication states its own date on its face and tells readers to check with their own city, and the state housing agency is the statutory publisher of the current list.", "no_fault_grounds_plain": "Three of the ten grounds are no-fault, and each must be made out by clear and convincing evidence. The landlord seeks the unit in good faith as a principal residence for the landlord or for a spouse, domestic partner, child, stepchild, parent, step-parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, parent-in-law or sibling-in-law, and no other suitable unit in the building is available; that ground is not available against a tenant who is 65 or older or who is a disabled person. The landlord seeks in good faith to demolish the unit. Or the landlord seeks in good faith to withdraw it from the rental market. A fourth ground reaches a tenant who will not agree to reasonable changes at renewal, including a rent increase that is not unreasonable, but only where the landlord gave written notice of the changes at least 30 and no more than 90 days before the current lease expires.", "relocation_payment_plain": null, "local_preemption": "local_option_authorized", "local_preemption_plain": "Section 213 expressly lets a village, town or city outside the city of New York adopt the article by local law, and bars an adopting locality from preempting or altering its terms; a locality may set only its own high-rent exemption figure and its own definition of a small landlord. Where a town and a village inside it both adopt, the town's law does not apply within the village. Local rent regulation is a separate question with its own answer: the state authorizes a locality to opt into rent stabilization, and that posture is carried on the rent-increase page.", "sunset_date": "2034-06-15", "rules_plain": "Where the Good Cause Eviction Law applies, a landlord may not remove a tenant by an action to evict or recover possession, by exclusion from possession, by failure to renew any lease, or otherwise, except on one of the ten grounds the article lists; the bar reaches non-renewal, not only eviction. Everywhere else in the state, and for every exempt unit, no reason is required to end a periodic tenancy or to let a fixed term expire, and the landlord gives the tiered notice and nothing more. The article preserves every other law governing the manner, timing and contents of notice to tenants, and any agreement by which a tenant waives or modifies its protections is void as contrary to public policy. A tenant who gives up possession under the owner-occupancy, demolition or market-withdrawal grounds has an action for damages and fees where the landlord made a fraudulent statement about the proposed use, and that action is the only civil claim the article creates. The whole package is repealed on June 15, 2034 by its own terms." }, "fixed_term": { "expiry_default": "notice_required", "notice_days": null, "notice_plain": "The landlord must give the same 30, 60 or 90 days before declining to renew, set by the longer of the tenant's cumulative occupancy and the length of the tenancy in each lease. A landlord who gives it late does not lose the termination: the tenancy continues on its existing terms from the day actual written notice was given until the period has run. The tenant owes no notice at all to end a tenancy for a definite term.", "conversion_mechanism": "presumption_on_rent_acceptance", "conversion_plain": "Where the term was longer than one month, holding over by itself does not give the landlord the option to hold the tenant to a new term. If the landlord accepts rent for a period after the term ended, and the parties have not agreed otherwise expressly or by implication, a month-to-month tenancy arises beginning on the first day after the old term expired.", "auto_renewal_reminder": { "days_before": 15, "rules_plain": "A lease clause that renews the term for a further period unless the tenant gives notice of an intention to quit is inoperative unless the landlord first calls the tenant's attention to it. The reminder must be in writing, served personally or by registered or certified mail, and given at least 15 days and no more than 30 days before the date the tenant's own notice falls due under the lease. Without it the renewal clause simply does not operate." }, "rules_plain": "A fixed term does not simply lapse on the landlord's side: the tiered non-renewal notice applies to a lease that is ending as much as to a periodic tenancy. The tenant needs no notice to leave at the end of a definite term. Holding over after a term longer than one month gives the landlord no option to bind the tenant to a further term, and the landlord's acceptance of rent instead creates a month-to-month tenancy starting the day after the old term ended. A reminder is required before an automatic-renewal clause can operate. Where the Good Cause Eviction Law applies, the non-renewal notice must also carry the statutory good-cause notice and identify the ground relied on." }, "holdover": { "status_plain": "A tenant who stays in possession of any part of the premises after the term expires without the landlord's permission is a holdover, and the landlord's route is a summary proceeding for possession; rent accepted after that proceeding has begun does not end it or defeat an award of possession. A squatter is not a tenant for this purpose, and no tenant or lawful occupant of a home may be removed except in a court proceeding.", "damages_measure": "double_rent", "damages_qualifiers": [], "damages_plain": "Double rent has one narrow trigger: a tenant who gave notice of an intention to quit and then did not hand over possession on the date that notice specified must pay the landlord double the rent otherwise payable, for as long as the tenant stays, recovered at the same time and in the same way as the single rent. It is not a general holdover penalty and it does not follow from a landlord's own termination notice. Where it does not apply, the landlord recovers reasonable compensation for the use and occupation of the property, with no statutory multiplier.", "converts_to_plain": null }, "mitigation": { "posture": "statutory", "posture_basis": null, "trigger": "general", "duty_attaches_on_plain": "The duty attaches when the tenant vacates in violation of the terms of the lease. It is not conditioned on a statutory abandonment, on the landlord accepting a surrender, or on the landlord electing a particular remedy.", "burden": "landlord", "standard_plain": "The landlord must act in good faith and, according to the landlord's own resources and abilities, take reasonable and customary actions to rent the premises at fair market value or at the rate agreed during the term of the tenancy, whichever is lower. The Appellate Division has held that a landlord need not use a traditional broker to satisfy the duty, and that a unit going unrented for months is not by itself proof that the efforts were unreasonable.", "displaced_by_fee": false, "acceleration": "unstated", "waivable_by_lease": "no", "rules_plain": "Since 2019 a New York landlord whose residential tenant leaves early must try to re-let. Once a new tenant's lease is in effect it terminates the previous tenant's lease, which caps what the departing tenant can owe. Any lease provision exempting the landlord from the duty is void as contrary to public policy. Mitigation is not a defense the tenant must plead: the statute puts the burden on the party seeking damages, and the Appellate Division has read that, in the ordinary case of a landlord suing for rent, as making the landlord show reasonable and customary efforts as part of its own case. The duty does not reach the real-estate purchase contracts the statute carves out. No statute addresses a lease clause accelerating the remaining rent on default, so nothing bars or limits one. Before the statute, the Court of Appeals had held that a landlord owed no duty to re-let at all, in a commercial office-lease case whose lease disclaimed the duty expressly and which the lower courts had extended to homes; that rule no longer governs a residential lease." }, "early_termination_fees": { "posture": "no_statute", "statutory_cap_plain": null, "damages_cap_plain": null, "rules_plain": "No New York statute authorizes, caps, or bars a fee for ending a residential lease early. The one fee-limiting section reaches only payments demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy, together with a background and credit check capped at actual cost or $20 whichever is less, a late fee of no more than $50 or five percent of the monthly rent whichever is less and only once rent is more than five days late, and a charge for a dishonored check; none of them touches a charge on the way out, and any lease provision waiving or limiting that section is void against public policy. What actually bounds a departing tenant's exposure is the landlord's non-waivable duty to re-let and the rule that a new tenant's lease ends the old one. This answer rests on the statutes rather than on the state's administrative rules; the fee section's own text is the only place the statutes point to a regulation, and it authorizes fees rather than limiting them." }, "tenant_early_termination": { "dv": { "mechanism": "right_to_terminate", "qualifying_plain": "A tenant, or a member of the tenant's household, who is a victim of domestic violence as the social services law defines it and who reasonably fears remaining in the premises because of potential further domestic violence. That definition covers a person over the age of sixteen, any married person, or a parent accompanied by a minor child, where the act would violate the penal law, caused actual physical or emotional injury or a substantial risk of it, and was committed by a family or household member. Family or household member reaches relatives by blood or marriage, spouses and former spouses whether or not they still live together, people with a child in common, people who live or once lived in the same household, and people who are or have been in an intimate relationship whether or not they ever shared a home and whether or not the relationship is sexual. Sexual abuse and stalking are named acts, so they qualify where the person responsible is a family or household member and not otherwise. There is no separate track for an assault by a stranger and none for human trafficking, which reaches the statute only through the same relationship test.", "separate_regimes_plain": null, "documentation_plain": "Within 25 days of the notice the tenant must give the landlord one or more of: a temporary or final order of protection; a record, complaint or report from a federal, state or local law-enforcement agency; a record from a health care provider for treatment related to domestic violence; or a written verification from a qualified third party. Qualified third party is defined broadly and reaches law-enforcement officers, employees of a state court, licensed attorneys, physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, registered nurses, therapists and clinical professional counselors, staff of a government or non-profit service that advises victims of domestic violence, and clergy. A sworn or notarized statement carrying the required information satisfies the verification. The court system posts sample forms, and the statute says they satisfy the requirements but are not required. The sequence matters to a landlord: the notice comes first and starts the 30 days, and the paperwork may lawfully arrive up to 25 days later.", "documentation_is_cumulative": false, "recency_window_days": null, "recency_window_kind": "none_stated", "recency_window_plain": "There is no look-back period. The statute does not require the incident to have happened within any stated time before the notice, and its trigger is a reasonable fear of potential further violence rather than the recency of what has already happened. The only clock is the 25 days the tenant has to supply documentation after giving notice.", "notice_days": 30, "notice_days_kind": "floor", "notice_days_plain": "The tenant gives written notice to the landlord or the landlord's agent and to any co-tenant other than the person responsible for the violence, and where the tenant says the landlord is that person, someone the tenant authorizes may deliver it instead. The notice must state that the tenant or a household member has experienced domestic violence and reasonably believes they cannot safely remain. It names the termination date, which may be no earlier than 30 days after delivery, so 30 days is a floor and a later date may be chosen. A notice sent by first-class mail counts as delivered five days after mailing.", "rent_liability_plain": "Rent runs pro rata to the termination date and stops there. Prepaid rent and other payments covering the period after that date are refundable within ten days of the written notice being delivered, once the tenant has vacated. The tenant has a defense to any action for rent or for breach of the lease and owes nothing after the effective termination date, but keeps liability for rent that accrued before vacating and giving notice.", "tenant_cost_plain": "No fee, penalty or forfeiture may be imposed for the termination. The landlord may still withhold from the security deposit to the extent the lease or another statute allows, but may not withhold anything for the early termination this section grants or because the tenant exercised the right.", "cotenant_effect": [ "cotenants_remain_bound" ], "cotenant_plain": "The landlord may not terminate or sever the co-tenancy without the consent of the remaining tenants, and must give them at least 30 days from the termination date to decide whether to consent. Those who stay keep the right to add an additional occupant under the roommate provision. Where the terminating tenant is the sole leaseholder, the premises must be delivered free of all tenants and occupants.", "lock_change": "not_addressed", "lock_change_plain": null, "screening_shield": "multiple", "adverse_action_bar_plain": "Two separate bars operate. The landlord may not divulge, describe or characterize the termination as an early termination to a prospective landlord or to any third party. Independently, refusing to rent, discriminating in the terms, conditions or privileges of a rental, or publishing a statement expressing any limitation or discrimination, because of a person's or a family member's status as a victim of domestic violence, is a misdemeanor carrying a fine of $1,000 to $2,000 for each offense, with a private action for compensatory damages and punitive damages of up to $2,000 an offense plus costs and fees. That second bar does not apply to owner-occupied buildings with two or fewer residential units.", "confidentiality_duty": true, "quit_deadline_plain": null, "revocability_plain": null, "landlord_side_rights_plain": "The landlord may require the documentation the statute lists and keeps every ground for recovering possession that is not based on or derived from the tenant's status as a victim. Liquidated damages of up to $1,000, plus actual damages, costs and attorney's fees, are available against a landlord only for a knowing or intentional violation. The terminating tenant must deliver the premises free of tenants and occupants but is expressly not responsible for making sure the abusive household member is gone, so the landlord cannot make that a condition of the termination. A landlord making reasonable and good-faith efforts to comply is not civilly liable to other tenants, guests, invitees or licensees. A tenant cannot waive the section.", "statutory_lease_disclosure_plain": null, "rules_plain": "A tenant, or a tenant whose household member is a victim, who reasonably fears staying because of potential further domestic violence may end the lease by written notice to the landlord and to any co-tenant other than the person responsible. The notice must say that domestic violence has occurred and that the person cannot safely remain, and it must name a termination date at least 30 days out. Documentation follows within 25 days: an order of protection, a law-enforcement record, a health care record, or a written verification from a qualified third party, any one of which is enough. The tenant pays rent to the termination date, is owed prepaid rent back within ten days of delivering the notice once the unit is empty, and owes nothing after that date. The landlord may not charge a penalty, may not keep the deposit because the right was used, must keep the status and the paperwork confidential, and may not describe the ending to anyone as an early termination. Remaining tenants stay on the lease unless they consent to a severance, and they have at least 30 days from the termination date to decide. Who counts is decided by the social services definition the section borrows, which requires the act to have been committed by a family or household member, a category that includes intimate partners whether or not they ever lived together. The anti-discrimination section that sits beside it uses a different and narrower definition, so a tenant can qualify for one and not the other." }, "military": { "state_extension": "multiple", "extension_limbs": [ "state_active_duty", "dependents_independent" ], "rights_attach_plain": "The state right reaches only a lease executed by or for a person who entered military service after signing it. A lease signed during service and followed by orders is covered by the federal act instead, which remains available as a floor, so the state provision is not a superset. Military service here means federal active service, active duty in the state's military service on the governor's order, and state active duty by National Guard members called by this state's governor or by another state's.", "rules_plain": "A person who entered military service after signing the lease may end it by written notice delivered at any time after service began, and placing a properly stamped and addressed notice in the mail is enough. The same provision reaches a lease for a home that was also executed by or for the person's spouse. A monthly lease ends 30 days after the first rent-due date following the notice; any other lease ends on the last day of the month after the month the notice was delivered or mailed, with unpaid rent prorated and rent paid in advance refunded. The landlord may apply to court before the termination date named in the notice, and the relief is then subject to whatever modifications or restrictions the court thinks justice and equity require. Knowingly seizing or holding the tenant's belongings to press a claim for rent accruing after the termination is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year's imprisonment or a $1,000 fine. Dependents are entitled to the same benefits, and where no court case is pending they may claim the benefit from the landlord directly, who must grant it unless their ability to comply has not been materially impaired by the service. Separately, no household of a person in military service may be evicted from a home except by leave of court, and the court must stay the proceeding for up to six months on application unless the ability to pay the agreed rent is not materially affected; that restraint carries no rent ceiling, unlike the federal provision." }, "tenant_death": { "posture": "statutory", "rules_plain": "The executor, administrator or legal representative of a deceased tenant may end a residential lease by notice to the landlord. The termination takes effect on the date the estate both notifies the landlord and surrenders possession, so there is no waiting period and no notice figure to count. The option must be accompanied by the written consent of any co-tenant or guarantor of the lease. The estate stays liable for rent and any debt incurred before the termination date, expressly including damage to the premises and any expense the landlord incurs as a direct result of the death, but owes no damages or penalty for inadequate notice. Notices must go by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested. Proprietary cooperative leases are excluded, and any waiver is void against public policy. A companion section covers assignment instead: the estate may ask for consent to assign or sublet, the landlord has ten days to ask for more information and thirty days from the request or from that information to consent, refuse, or elect to terminate, silence counts as consent, and if the landlord terminates or unreasonably refuses consent the lease is deemed terminated and the estate and any other tenant are discharged as of the last day of that month." }, "other_grounds_plain": "A tenant aged 62 or older, or a tenant with a disability, or that tenant's spouse or dependent, may end the lease on moving into an adult care facility, a residential health care facility, subsidized or senior housing, or a family member's home for at least six months. The notice carries a physician's certification and, for a move to a relative, a notarized statement from that relative; the termination takes effect no earlier than 30 days after the next rent-due date following delivery, and a mailed notice counts as delivered five days after mailing. The statute prints its own worked example: mailed May 5, received May 10, next rent due June 1, termination effective July 1. A senior who then cancels the care-facility contract within three business days may reinstate the original lease until midnight of the fifth business day after the termination notice was delivered, and the lease continues as if there had been no interruption. Any replacement lease the landlord signed in the meantime is cancelled by the statute: the landlord owes the disappointed incoming tenant only a refund of rent and security, owes a broker nothing, and any broker's fee paid on either lease is refunded to whoever paid it. Separately, where the building is destroyed or so injured by the elements or any other cause as to be untenantable and unfit for occupancy, and the tenant was not at fault, the tenant may quit and surrender, owes no rent for the time after the surrender, and has rent adjusted to that date, unless an express written agreement says otherwise. Ending the lease because the landlord will not keep the home habitable, and protection against retaliation, are covered on the habitability page." }, "abandonment": { "trigger": [ "none" ], "notice_days": null, "rebuttal_window_plain": null, "rules_plain": "New York has no abandonment statute for a home. Nothing deems a tenancy ended after a stated absence, and there is no notice of belief of abandonment for the landlord to serve and the tenant to answer. When a tenant walks away, the lease continues until something else ends it. The landlord's duty to re-let attaches at that point, and a new tenant's lease terminates the old one once it is in effect. Where the tenant instead held over after a fixed term, acceptance of rent creates a month-to-month tenancy. A landlord who wants possession back brings a summary proceeding, and the older route of accepting the tenant's surrender and re-entering, which releases the tenant from further liability for rent, still sits in the background. What happens to property a tenant leaves behind is covered separately from this page." }, "notice_service": { "methods_plain": "New York prescribes delivery notice by notice rather than once for all of them. The tiered non-renewal notice and the tenant's one-month notice outside the city of New York require writing and say nothing about how it travels. The monthly-tenancy notice inside the city of New York must be served the way a notice of petition in a summary proceeding is served: personal delivery, or delivery to a person of suitable age and discretion who lives or works at the property where admittance can be obtained, or affixing a copy to a conspicuous part of the property or placing it under the entrance door, with a mailing by both registered or certified mail and regular first-class mail within one day of the substituted delivery. A notice ending a tenancy at will or at sufferance must be delivered to the tenant or to a person of suitable age and discretion living on the premises, or affixed to a conspicuous part of the premises where it may conveniently be read. A deceased tenant's estate must send its notice by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested. The automatic-renewal reminder must be served personally or by registered or certified mail. A servicemember's notice may go by ordinary stamped mail.", "documents_plain": null, "electronic_permitted": "not_addressed", "mail_added_days": 5, "mail_rule_is_cap": false, "mail_addon_plain": "Two termination statutes deem a mailed notice delivered five days after mailing: the senior and disability termination, and the domestic-violence termination, which applies the rule to first-class mail. Both push the start of the period later rather than capping how far mailing can extend the tenancy. Neither reaches the tiered non-renewal notice, which carries no deemed-delivery rule at all, and that is a common trap because it is the notice landlords use most.", "officer_service_required": false, "content_requirements_plain": "Where the Good Cause Eviction Law applies, a statutory notice must be appended to or written into any initial lease, any renewal lease, the tiered non-renewal notice, a fourteen-day rent demand, and the petition itself. The form is printed in the statute. It states the unit's street address, unit number and municipality, answers whether the unit is subject to the article, marks every exemption claimed where it is not, and on a non-renewal identifies the ground relied on by letter, including the clear-and-convincing standard for a market withdrawal and the figure above which a rent increase is presumptively unreasonable. The other content rules are short: the notice inside the city of New York must say that the landlord elects to terminate and that summary proceedings will follow if the tenant does not leave on the day designated; the tenancy-at-will notice must require the tenant to remove from the premises; the domestic-violence notice must state that violence occurred and that the tenant cannot safely remain; and the automatic-renewal reminder must call the tenant's attention to the clause in the lease.", "language_requirement_plain": null, "alternate_address_rule_plain": null }, "federal_overlay": { "federal_overlay_note": "New York's own statutes stand beside the federal servicemember act, the federal Violence Against Women Act and the federal 30-day notice for covered dwellings. Two state provisions reach further than the federal ones they parallel: the state servicemember act covers active duty in the state's military service and National Guard members called by this state's or another state's governor, which the federal definition does not, and the state's restraint on evicting a servicemember's household carries no rent ceiling, while the federal section applies only below an indexed monthly rent. Nothing in the state's termination statutes adopts or codifies the federal 30-day notice.", "cares_30day_notice": { "status": "no_state_appellate_authority", "authority_plain": "No New York appellate decision construes the federal 30-day notice for covered dwellings. The federal provision is unrepealed and unamended, and neither the decisions elsewhere holding it lapsed nor those limiting it to nonpayment bind a New York court.", "as_of": "2026-09-02" } }, "provenance": { "published_text_differs_from_enacted": false, "kinds": [], "basis": "none", "plain": null }, "future_versions": [ { "act": "L. 2024, ch. 56, Part HH (S8306) — the Good Cause Eviction Law and its own repeal date", "signed_on": "2024-04-20", "effective_on": "2034-06-15", "change_plain": "On June 15, 2034 the Good Cause Eviction Law and the statutory good-cause notice are repealed by their own terms, and the tiered non-renewal statute switches to an already-enacted successor version that drops the sentence requiring that notice to be appended. From that date no ground is required anywhere in the state to end a tenancy or decline to renew, the relocation, coverage and exemption rules fall away with the article, and the notice's content requirement goes with them. The 30, 60 and 90-day periods themselves are not repealed and carry on unchanged.", "citation": { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 6-A §§ 210–218 (repealed effective June 15, 2034)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/A6-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "§§ 210–218" } } ], "pending_legislation": [ { "bill": "S8612-A (2025–2026)", "summary": "Titled as technical changes to the Good Cause Eviction Law, and substantive on its face. It would rewrite the new-construction exemption from a building-level test to a unit-level one keyed to the certificate of occupancy for that newly created unit; narrow the rent-regulated, income-restricted and condominium or cooperative exemptions; recast the nonpayment ground as chronic nonpayment of rent, with facts to be set out in the non-renewal notice, a limit of one rent increase a year and no right to cure; add a carve-out from the good-cause notice for a landlord whose lease already states that the unit is regulated and that a ground is required; and move the state housing agency's annual publication from August 1 to June 1, effective each October 1.", "status": "Passed the Senate on June 2, 2026, delivered to the Assembly the same day and referred to the Codes committee, where it remains pending. New York runs a two-year 2025 to 2026 term with no adjournment sine die, so the measure stays alive into December 2026.", "checked": "2026-09-02", "lifecycle": "passed_one_chamber", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null }, { "bill": "A9370-A (2025–2026)", "summary": "The Assembly companion to the Good Cause Eviction Law changes described above, carrying the same amendments to the coverage, exemption, ground and notice provisions.", "status": "Reported and referred to the Rules committee on May 28, 2026, where it remains pending.", "checked": "2026-09-02", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null }, { "bill": "S7124 / A7408 (2025–2026)", "summary": "Would amend the section that lets a victim of domestic violence end a residential lease early.", "status": "Referred to the Senate Judiciary and Assembly Housing committees on January 12, 2026, where both remain pending.", "checked": "2026-09-02", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null }, { "bill": "S7903 / A8312 / A7026 (2025–2026)", "summary": "The safe housing transfer for domestic violence victims act, which would amend the same early-termination section and the public housing law.", "status": "Referred to the Senate Judiciary committee on January 7, 2026, with the Assembly prints in committee, and all three remain pending.", "checked": "2026-09-02", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null }, { "bill": "S421 / A2611 (2025–2026)", "summary": "Would extend the landlord's duty to re-let after a tenant leaves early to commercial leases, which the residential duty does not currently cover.", "status": "In committee in both chambers, where both remain pending.", "checked": "2026-09-02", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null } ], "notable_failed_legislation_plain": null, "negative_basis": { "landlord_tenant_chapter": "Real Property Law Article 7 (Landlord and Tenant) enumerated in full from the law tree and read section by section — 55 sections, 220 through 238-a — together with Article 6-A (Good Cause Eviction, sections 210 through 218, nine sections) and Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Article 7 (32 sections, 701 through 768); title-wide term runs across the Real Property Law, the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law and the General Obligations Law for abandon, surrender, vacat, terminat, quit, holdover, holding over, forfeit, early, fee, charge, liquidated, damage, penalt, lease and renew; and statewide full-text searches of the consolidated laws for 'abandonment of the premises' (no results), 'notice of belief of abandonment' (no results), 'electronic mail' with 'notice to quit' (no results), 'served electronically' with tenant (no results), 'predominant language' (no results), 'language' with 'notice of petition' (three results, none a termination notice), and 'early termination' with lease (18 results, all motor-vehicle or public-authority provisions).", "dv_title": "Social Services Law Article 6-A, including the definitions in section 459-a read in full, run for tenan, lease, landlord, lock chang, rental, evict and housing (nine hits, all adult-home or homeless-services provisions); the Executive Law and the Family Court Act run the same way (12 and 10 hits, all order-of-protection or release provisions); and statewide full-text searches for 'victim of domestic violence' with 'rental agreement' (exactly one section, Real Property Law 227-c), 'sexual assault' with 'rental agreement' (two hits, both order-of-protection sections), stalking with 'rental agreement' (no results), 'terminate the lease' with 'domestic violence' (no results), 'human trafficking' with lease (two hits, neither a tenancy provision), 'lock change' (no results), 'domestic violence' with lock (no results), and locks (30 sections, of which only Multiple Dwelling Law 50-a and 51-c are tenancy provisions and neither is a lock-change right).", "military_title": "Military Law Article 13, the New York Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1951, enumerated in full — 41 sections, 300 through 328 — with sections 301, 301-b, 309 and 310 read in full, plus a title-wide run of the whole Military Law for tenan, lease, landlord, lock chang, rental, evict and housing (nine hits; the tenancy provisions are sections 309 and 310, the rest covering motor-vehicle leases, additional rental contracts and service contracts).", "administrative_code": "The New York Codes, Rules and Regulations were not consulted: the Department of State's regulation publication did not serve its pages at the time of verification, and the regulations are not carried by the Senate's legislative text service. The fee negative rests on the three statutory readings above plus the fee section's own limitation to payments demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy, whose only reference to a regulation is a carve-out authorizing fees rather than capping them. The state housing agency's rent-regulation rules govern regulated tenancies only and are outside a statewide answer here." }, "leading_cases": [ { "case_name": "Holy Properties Ltd., L.P. v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.", "reporter_cite": "87 N.Y.2d 130, 637 N.Y.S.2d 964, 661 N.E.2d 694 (1995)", "court": "New York Court of Appeals", "year": 1995, "holding_plain": "A lease is a present transfer of an estate in land rather than an ordinary executory contract, so once the lease is executed the tenant's obligation to pay rent is fixed by its terms and the landlord owes no duty to re-let abandoned premises to reduce damages; the landlord may do nothing and collect the rent, accept the surrender and re-let for its own account, or re-let for the tenant's account after notice. The case arose from a commercial office lease whose own terms expressly disclaimed any duty to mitigate, and the statutory duty enacted in 2019 now governs residential leases instead.", "url": "https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2092928/holy-properties-ltd-v-kenneth-cole-productions-inc/", "residential_scope": "commercial", "applies_to": "mitigation" }, { "case_name": "14 E. 4th St. Unit 509 LLC v. Toporek", "reporter_cite": "203 A.D.3d 17, 159 N.Y.S.3d 419 (1st Dep't 2022)", "court": "Appellate Division, First Department", "year": 2022, "holding_plain": "The 2019 statute settles that the duty to re-let applies to every residential lease in the state, and it is not an affirmative defense for the tenant to plead: the burden sits on the landlord to establish that it took reasonable and customary actions. A landlord need not show it used a traditional broker as part of its own case, and the fact that the apartment was not re-rented for more than a year is not itself proof that the efforts were unreasonable. The tenant had vacated a non-regulated Manhattan apartment six months before the lease ended.", "url": "https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2022/2022_00002.htm", "residential_scope": "residential", "applies_to": "mitigation" } ], "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 226-c", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/226-C", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(a)–(b), (2)(a)–(d)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law §§ 232-a, 232-b, 232-c", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/232-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 228", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/228", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law §§ 220, 229", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/220", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 227-e", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/227-E", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 227-c", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/227-C", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)–(6)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 227-d", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/227-D", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(2)(a)–(d)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law §§ 227, 227-a, 227-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/227", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law §§ 236, 236-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/236", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 231-c", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/231-C", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(a)–(b), (2), (2-a), (3)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 6-A §§ 210–218", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/A6-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "§§ 211(3), (7)–(8), 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Acts. Law § 711", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/711", "official": true, "pinpoint": "opening paragraph, (1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Acts. Law § 735", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/735", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)(b)" }, { "statute": "New York Attorney General, New York State Good Cause Eviction Law — What you should know (March 2026)", "url": "https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2026-03/goodcause-eviction-english.pdf", "official": true, "pinpoint": "pages 2 and 7" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 5-905", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/5-905", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Mil. Law art. 13 (§§ 300–328, Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MIL/A13", "official": true, "pinpoint": "§§ 301, 301-b, 309, 310" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 459-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/SOS/459-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "In New York a landlord ending or declining to renew a residential tenancy must give at least 30, 60 or 90 days' written notice, set by how long the tenant has lived there rather than by a flat month. Outside New York City a tenant gives one month; inside the city no statute states a period for the tenant. A landlord who gives the notice late does not lose the termination, because the tenancy simply continues until the period has run. The Good Cause Eviction Law requires a ground to evict or refuse to renew, automatically in New York City and elsewhere only where the locality has adopted it, and it is repealed on June 15, 2034. A landlord whose tenant leaves early must take reasonable and customary steps to re-let, and the burden of showing them sits on the landlord. There is no early-termination fee statute and no abandonment statute. A victim of domestic violence may end the lease on at least 30 days' notice with documentation following within 25 days and pays rent only to the termination date; a deceased tenant's estate may end the lease on notice and surrender of possession; and a servicemember who signed the lease before entering service may end it once service begins.", "notes": [ { "label": "Not a flat 30 days", "text": "The landlord's period is 30, 60 or 90 days depending on how long the tenant has been there, measured as the longer of cumulative occupancy and the length of the tenancy in each lease. A tenant of more than two years is owed 90 days. The widely repeated 30-day figure is right only for a tenant of under a year with no lease term of a year or more." }, { "label": "The tenant's side is different", "text": "Outside New York City a tenant ends a monthly tenancy with one month's notice before the term expires, and needs no notice at all to leave at the end of a fixed term. Inside the city, the tenant provision does not apply and no statute states a period for the tenant." }, { "label": "A late landlord notice is not a fatal one", "text": "If the landlord gives the notice late, the tenancy continues on its existing terms from the day actual written notice was given until the period has run. The defect is cured by time rather than voiding the termination." }, { "label": "Whether a ground is required depends on the address", "text": "The Good Cause Eviction Law applies in New York City automatically and elsewhere only where the village, town or city has adopted it. As of a March 2026 publication by the Attorney General's office, Albany, Ithaca, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Rochester had adopted it, and that publication tells readers to check with their own city; the state housing agency is the statutory publisher of the current list, which also carries each locality's high-rent figure and its own definition of a small landlord." }, { "label": "The good-cause package ends in 2034", "text": "Article 6-A and its notice are repealed on June 15, 2034 by their own terms, and the notice statute switches to an already-enacted successor version on that date. The 30, 60 and 90-day periods are not affected." }, { "label": "Double rent has one trigger", "text": "Twice the rent is owed only where the tenant gave notice of an intention to quit and then stayed past the date that notice named. A landlord's own termination notice does not produce it, and otherwise the landlord recovers reasonable compensation for use and occupation." }, { "label": "No early-termination fee statute", "text": "Nothing authorizes, caps, or bars a fee for leaving early. The fee-limiting statute reaches only charges demanded before or at the start of the tenancy, late fees and dishonored-check charges. This answer rests on the statutes rather than on the state's administrative rules." }, { "label": "No abandonment statute", "text": "There is no absence period that ends a tenancy and no notice of belief of abandonment. When a tenant leaves, the landlord's duty to re-let attaches and a new tenant's lease ends the old one; possession is recovered through a summary proceeding." }, { "label": "Tenancies at will run on a different clock", "text": "A tenancy at will or at sufferance is ended by a written notice of at least 30 days, and those days run forward from service rather than back from the end of a rental period." }, { "label": "Some silences in the domestic-violence statute", "text": "There is no look-back period limiting how recent the incident must be, no lock-change right in state law, and no duty to state the termination right in the lease. Lock-change duties in New York City are municipal and belong to the locality pages." }, { "label": "Nothing on electronic delivery or language", "text": "No statute authorizes or forbids sending a termination notice by email, and no statewide rule requires a termination notice in any language other than English." }, { "label": "Where the other termination rules live", "text": "Notices for nonpayment or a lease breach and the court process are on the eviction page; the notice for a rent increase, and local rent regulation, are on the rent-increase page; ending a lease because the home is not habitable, and protection against retaliation, are on the habitability page; manufactured-home lots have their own page; and what happens to property a tenant leaves behind is covered separately." }, { "label": "Legislation", "text": "A measure making substantial changes to the Good Cause Eviction Law passed the Senate on June 2, 2026 and sits in an Assembly committee; it would narrow several exemptions, recast the nonpayment ground as chronic nonpayment with no right to cure, and move the state housing agency's annual publication from August 1 to June 1. Four other measures touching the domestic-violence termination right and the duty to re-let are in committee. New York's two-year term runs to December 2026, so none of them has died." } ] }, "mobile_home_parks": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-18", "verified_by_method": "Direct read of N.Y. Real Property Law § 233, § 233-a and § 233-b on nysenate.gov, section by section, together with the Article 7 section list, the official bill pages for L 2023, ch. 593 (S5881-A) and for the 2025-2026 session bills S228-A/A340-A, S7343 and S8698, the Governor's October 25, 2023 signing release, and the NYS Homes and Community Renewal tenants' rights summary. Chapter numbers for the 2019 and April 2024 changes are not stated on the official statute pages and are not claimed here.", "tier": 1, "act_name": "Manufactured home parks; duties, responsibilities", "act_citation": "N.Y. Real Property Law § 233, with § 233-a and § 233-b", "fallback_act": null, "fields": { "enforcement_agency": { "status": "regulated", "value": "The Commissioner of Housing and Community Renewal, at New York State Homes and Community Renewal.", "detail": "Every park owner or operator files a registration statement with the Commissioner each year on or before January 1, listing the people who own an interest in the park, the tenants, the services the owner provides and the current park rules. The Commissioner may bring a special proceeding for an injunction, a court may impose a civil penalty of up to $1,500 for each violation, and the Commissioner publishes an annual report of the registration data on its website without personally identifying anyone.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(v)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "private_right_of_action": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "A tenant may sue for damages actually incurred from a breach of the section, or raise the same claim as a counterclaim in a proceeding the park owner brings. Where a lease gives the park owner attorney's fees, the tenant has the same right by implied covenant.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(u)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(o)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "min_park_size_lots": { "status": "regulated", "value": 3, "detail": "A manufactured home park is a contiguous parcel of privately owned land used for three or more manufactured homes occupied for year-round living.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(a)(3)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "secondary_thresholds": { "status": "regulated", "value": [ { "lots": 4, "effect": "The retaliation protections and the right to sublease apply only in parks with four or more manufactured homes." }, { "lots": 6, "effect": "Where the park has six or more lots, a lot deposit must go into an interest-bearing account and the interest belongs to the tenant, less one percent a year for administration." } ], "detail": "The act itself reaches parks of three or more homes; two of its rules switch on at four homes and one at six lots.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(n)(3)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(t)(2)(a)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(4)(c)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "covers_park_owned_rental_homes": { "status": "regulated", "value": "partly_covered", "detail": "A manufactured home tenant is defined as someone who rents a lot for their own home or who rents a manufactured home in the park from the park owner, so both are inside the act. The rules are not identical: where the person rents the home itself, an eviction warrant may be executed on 72 hours' written notice rather than the longer periods that apply to a lot tenant. Rent-to-own contracts have their own set of requirements.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(a)(1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(d)(4)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(y)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "covers_rv_park_model": { "status": "regulated", "value": "excluded", "detail": "The park definition counts only homes occupied for year-round living, the manufactured home definition follows the federal construction standard for size and permanent chassis, and the mobile home definition covers units designed for residential purposes and excludes travel trailers. Campgrounds are dealt with in a separate section of the same article.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(a)(3)-(5)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "local_mhp_rent_regulation": { "status": "regulated", "value": "no_express_statute", "detail": "New York sets the limit on lot-rent increases at the state level. The scope subdivision of the rent-increase section says only which parks the section applies to and exempts parks under a government agreement that preserves affordable housing or otherwise limits increases; neither it nor the main act says whether a city, town or village may regulate park lot rents.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "rent_increase_notice_days": { "status": "regulated", "value": 90, "detail": "No rent, fee, charge or assessment may be increased unless the notice states the date the increase takes effect, and that date must be at least 90 days after written notice to every tenant.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(3)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "rent_increase_frequency_limit": { "status": "regulated", "value": "Once in any year. Rent and other fees, charges and assessments may not be increased more than once a year.", "detail": "The limit covers fees, charges and assessments as well as rent, so a mid-year fee increase counts against the same annual allowance.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(x)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "rent_increase_cap": { "status": "regulated", "value": { "instrument": "Percentage limit with a stated-justification exception and an outer ceiling a court may lift only for temporary hardship", "rate": "3%; higher only on one of three stated justifications, and never above 6% unless a court approves a temporary hardship increase, which may not run more than six months", "base": "The rent since the current rent became effective, where rent means all costs, including all rent, fees, charges, assessments and utilities", "exemptions": "Homes in parks subject to an agreement with a government body that preserves affordable housing or otherwise limits rent increases", "escalator": null, "sunset": null, "headline": "3%, or up to 6% on a stated justification" }, "detail": "The three justifications that allow an increase above 3% are a rise in the park owner's operating expenses, a rise in the park's property taxes, and costs directly related to capital improvements in the park. An increase that does not exceed the tenant's pro-rata share of operating costs and property taxes is treated as justifiable and cannot be disputed on that point.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(2)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(5)-(6)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "rent_increase_challenge_mechanism": { "status": "regulated", "value": "A homeowner may challenge an increase above 3% as unjustified by filing an action for a declaratory judgment within 90 days of the proposed increase, in the court with jurisdiction where the park is located.", "detail": "Several homeowners may join one action where they share a question of law and fact. While the challenge is pending the tenant pays the increase to the park owner, who holds it in escrow until the parties reach a mediated agreement or the court decides; a park owner who fails to escrow the disputed amount faces a civil penalty of up to $500. No tenant may be evicted for not paying the increase before the court finally disposes of the matter. The court may also condition its approval of an increase on the park owner correcting conditions that threaten a tenant's health and safety.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)-(4)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(7)-(8)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "entrance_fee_prohibited": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "The act does not use the term entrance fee. It permits a tenant to be charged for rent, utilities and facilities and services available to the tenant, and nothing else, and every fee, charge or assessment must be reasonably related to services actually rendered. A park owner also may not require a tenant to buy skirting, tie-down or other equipment from the park, charge a fee solely for installing an appliance, require the purchase of commodities or services as a condition of placement or rental, or require that the home be bought from the park owner or a person the park owner names.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(h)(1)-(4)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "exit_fee_prohibited": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The fees subdivision, which lists what a tenant may be charged, does not name a removal, exit or move-out fee, and no other part of the act addresses one. What applies instead is the general rule that the only permitted charges are rent, utilities and charges for facilities and services, each reasonably related to services actually rendered, together with the separate bar on the park taking a commission on the sale of a home.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(2)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "undisclosed_fees_uncollectible": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The park owner must disclose all fees, charges, assessments and rules in writing before entering into a rental agreement, but the act does not say that a fee left out of that disclosure cannot be collected. What applies instead is the tenant's action for damages and the Commissioner's enforcement powers.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(2)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(u)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "utility_billing_regulated": { "status": "regulated", "value": "A park may charge for utilities, and the charge must be reasonably related to the service actually rendered.", "detail": "A park owner who has agreed to supply hot or cold water, heat, light, power or another service and who willfully fails to do so without just cause is guilty of a violation. Utilities also count as rent for the purposes of the 3% limit on annual increases, so a utility charge cannot be raised outside that limit.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(p)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(2)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "submetering_required": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The fees and charges subdivision, which would carry it, says nothing about individual meters, submetering or the resale of a utility. What applies instead is the lease and the requirement that any utility charge be reasonably related to the service actually rendered.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "security_deposit_rules": { "status": "regulated", "value": "A lot deposit stays the tenant's money, is held in trust and may not be mixed with the park owner's own funds.", "detail": "Where the property has six or more lots, the deposit must go into an interest-bearing account at the prevailing rate; the interest belongs to the tenant, less one percent a year that the person holding the account may keep for administration. The act does not cap the amount of the deposit.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(4)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "written_lease_required": { "status": "regulated", "value": "required", "detail": "The park owner must offer every tenant, before occupancy, the chance to sign a lease of at least one year, and must renew the offer each year: by October 1 for a tenant without a current lease, or 90 days before an existing lease expires. A tenant who does not sign and return the lease within 30 days is treated as having declined it for the next twelve months, so the offer is mandatory but signing is not.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(e)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "min_lease_term_offer_months": { "status": "regulated", "value": 12, "detail": "The lease the park owner must offer runs for a minimum of one year.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(e)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "nonrenewal_notice_days": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "There is no notice period for ending a lot tenancy without cause, because a park owner may not evict for anything other than the grounds the act lists. Refusing to renew a lease in retaliation is separately prohibited.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(n)(2)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "rules_change_notice_days": { "status": "regulated", "value": 30, "detail": "A changed rule must name the date it takes effect, and that date must be at least 30 days after written notice to all tenants. Park rules must not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and applying a rule unevenly raises a presumption that it is unreasonable.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(f)(4)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(f)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "disclosure_document_required": { "status": "regulated", "value": "written_rules_and_terms", "detail": "Before entering into a rental agreement the park owner must disclose in writing all fees, charges and assessments, including rental fees, together with the park rules. New York does not prescribe a state-drafted disclosure form for this in the act.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(2)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "assembly_rights_protected": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "A park owner may not serve a notice to quit, bring an eviction or alter the terms of the tenancy in retaliation for a tenant taking part in the activities of a tenants' organization. When a park is offered for sale, the notice to homeowners must tell them they have the right to organize an association or a cooperative for the park.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(n)(1)(c)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(b)(iii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "entry_rule": { "status": "regulated", "value": "The park owner may enter a homeowner's manufactured home without consent only in an emergency, and may enter a home the park itself rents out during reasonable hours on reasonable notice.", "detail": "The act also requires the park owner to give reasonable notice, where practicable, to tenants who will be affected by any planned disruption of necessary services, and to keep an agent at or near the park so emergency response is available.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(j)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(k)-(l)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "retaliation_prohibited": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "A park owner may not serve a notice to quit or start an eviction in retaliation for a good faith complaint to a government authority about a health or safety violation, for a good faith attempt to secure or enforce rights under the lease or under federal, state or local law, or for taking part in a tenants' organization; nor may the park substantially alter the terms of the tenancy, including refusing to renew a lease, for those reasons. This protection applies in parks with four or more manufactured homes.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(n)(1)-(3)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "just_cause_required": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "A park owner may not evict a tenant for any reason other than those the act lists, and a tenant may raise the absence of a listed ground as an affirmative defense in an eviction case.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(c)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "just_cause_grounds": { "status": "regulated", "value": [ "Default in the payment of rent, after a demand for the rent served with at least 30 days' written notice", "Use of the premises as a bawdy house or place of assignation, for prostitution, or for any illegal trade or business", "Violation of a federal, state or local law or ordinance that may be deemed detrimental to the safety and welfare of other people living in the park", "Violation of a lease term or park rule that continues more than ten days after written notice to correct it, or persistent violation", "A proposed change in the use of the park land, or part of it, from lot rentals to some other use" ], "detail": "The list is closed: these are the only grounds on which a lot tenancy may be ended.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(2)-(6)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "nonpayment_notice_days": { "status": "regulated", "value": 30, "detail": "Before an eviction for nonpayment the park owner must serve a demand for the rent with at least 30 days' written notice, in the manner the eviction statute prescribes. If an eviction is ordered, the court must direct that the warrant be delivered with a further 30 days' written notice to the person to be evicted.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(2)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(d)(3)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "rule_violation_notice_days": { "status": "regulated", "value": 10, "detail": "The written notice must name the lease term or rule broken and direct the tenant to correct it within ten days. Only if the violation continues past that period may the park owner serve a further written notice to vacate within 30 days.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(5)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "repeat_violation_rule": { "status": "regulated", "value": "A tenant or occupant who is deemed a persistent violator of the lease terms or park rules may be served with a notice to vacate within 30 days, without a further chance to correct.", "detail": "The same subdivision that sets the ten-day correction period treats persistent violation as an alternative route to the 30-day notice to vacate.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(5)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "home_removal_or_sale_period_days": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The termination and eviction subdivisions set no separate window to sell or move the home after a tenancy ends. What applies instead are the notice periods before an eviction warrant may be carried out: at least 90 days as standard, 30 days where the conditions behind the eviction pose an imminent threat to the health, safety or welfare of other tenants, 30 days for nonpayment, and 72 hours where the person rents the home itself. The right to sell the home in place runs alongside those periods.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(d)(1)-(4)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "abandonment_procedure_exists": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The termination and eviction subdivisions carry no procedure for a home left behind in the park, and no other part of the act supplies one. What applies instead is general New York law outside this act.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)-(d)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "mandatory_mediation": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "Neither the main act nor the rent-increase section requires mediation or arbitration. The rent-increase section mentions mediation only as one way a dispute may end: money the tenant pays into escrow is held until the parties reach a mediated agreement or the court decides.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(8)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "change_of_use_notice_months": { "status": "regulated", "value": 24, "detail": "Eviction proceedings based on a change of use may not begin until two years after the notice of the proposed change is served. The notice must tell the homeowner of the proposed change and of the need to find other accommodation, must go at the same time to every other homeowner and tenant who will have to move, and must be served in the manner the eviction statute prescribes or by certified mail with return receipt requested.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "change_of_use_variants": { "status": "regulated", "value": [ { "trigger": "Change of use of the park land, or part of it, from lot rentals to another use", "notice": "Two years from service of the notice of proposed change of use", "detail": "The notice goes to the homeowner and, at the same time, to every other homeowner or tenant who will have to find other accommodation." }, { "trigger": "Park bought by a purchaser who certified that it did not intend to change the use of the land", "notice": "Sixty months from the closing on the sale", "detail": "No change-of-use eviction may begin until that period runs. The certification this rule refers to was part of the park-sale section before that section was rewritten in October 2023 and no longer appears there." } ], "detail": "The two-year rule is the general one; the sixty-month rule applies where a purchaser had given the certification the act describes.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)(i)-(ii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "relocation_payment_required": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "On a change of use the park owner must provide each homeowner a stipend of up to $15,000 under a court order, and an eviction warrant may not be carried out until the stipend has been paid. The court sets the amount, weighing the cost of relocating, the number of homes affected, the purchase price and value of the property, development rights and other relevant factors.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)(iii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "relocation_payment_amounts": { "status": "regulated", "value": [ { "label": "Change-of-use stipend per homeowner", "amount": "Up to $15,000", "basis": "Paid by the park owner under a court order; the amount is set by the court and an eviction warrant may not be carried out until it is paid." } ], "detail": "The figure is a ceiling set by the act, not a fixed payment, and it is not tied to an index.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)(iii)(A)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "relocation_payer": { "status": "regulated", "value": "park_owner", "detail": "The act places the stipend on the park owner or operator.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)(iii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "government_notice_on_closure_required": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The change-of-use paragraph requires notice only to the homeowners and tenants who will have to move; it does not require notice to a state or local body. Notice to the Commissioner of Housing and Community Renewal is required when a park is offered for sale, not when it closes.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(a)(iii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "park_sale_notice_required": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "When the park owner receives a bona fide offer it intends to accept or answer with a counteroffer, it must notify the officers of the homeowners' association, or, if none exists, every homeowner in the park, and must also notify the Commissioner of Housing and Community Renewal.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(a)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "park_sale_notice_trigger": { "status": "regulated", "value": "Taking any action to market or offer the park for sale, or receiving a bona fide offer the owner intends to accept or answer with a counteroffer.", "detail": "The acceptance or counteroffer must itself carry a notice saying it is subject to the homeowners' right to buy the park. The notice to homeowners must state the price, the material terms and conditions on which the owner would sell, that the homeowners may organize an association or a cooperative, that purchase financing may be available through New York State Homes and Community Renewal, and that they have 140 days to exercise the right to buy.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(2)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(b)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "resident_purchase_right": { "status": "regulated", "value": "right_of_first_refusal", "detail": "The association has the right to buy the park if it delivers an executed offer meeting the identical price, terms and conditions of the offer or counteroffer set out in the park owner's notice. During that period the park owner may not accept a final unconditional offer from anyone else.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(c)(ii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "resident_response_days": { "status": "regulated", "value": 140, "detail": "Two deadlines run together. Within 60 days of the notice the homeowners must deliver a notice of intent to make an offer, and if they miss it the park owner has no further obligation. The executed matching offer is then due within 140 days of the notice. Where no association exists when the offer arrives, the 60-day notice of intent must be signed by more than half of all homeowners, who may then form an association and deliver the offer inside the same 140 days. If the park owner later decides to sell at a lower price or on substantially different terms, the homeowners get a further 30 days to match the revised terms.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(c)(i)-(iv)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(d)(i)-(iii)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "association_threshold_pct": { "status": "regulated", "value": 50, "detail": "The association must take in more than fifty percent of all homeowners in the park, each having given written consent to forming it, and must have told the park owner it exists and given the names and addresses of its officers. The threshold is expressed as greater than fifty percent rather than a round majority figure.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(b)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "park_sale_exceptions": { "status": "regulated", "value": [ "A conveyance of an interest in the park incidental to financing the park", "Purchase of the park by a government body under its power of eminent domain" ], "detail": "These are the only two transfers the section takes outside its reach.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(4)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "assignment_right": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The park-sale section gives the right to the homeowners themselves, acting through an association or a cooperative, and says nothing about handing it to a nonprofit, a municipality or a housing authority. It does tell homeowners that purchase financing may be available through New York State Homes and Community Renewal, and it adds that nothing in it forces the park owner to divide the land and sell it to individual homeowners.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)(b)(iv)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(5)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "violation_penalty": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The park-sale section states no damages, penalty or remedy for breaking its rules; it ends with the provision about not dividing the land. The Commissioner's power to seek an injunction and the civil penalty of up to $1,500 for each violation sit in the main act and are written against violations of that section.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(5)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(v)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "sale_in_place_protected": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "A park owner may not deny a tenant the right to sell the home inside the park, provided the tenant gives 20 days' written notice of the intention to sell, and may not require the home to be moved out solely because it has been sold. The park may not keep a prospective buyer or a seller's representative out of the park unless it shows the restriction is needed to protect the park's property from substantial harm.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "sale_commission_prohibited": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "The park may not take a commission or fee out of the price the seller realizes unless it acted as the seller's agent under a written contract.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(2)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "buyer_approval_allowed": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "The park may reserve the right to approve the buyer as a tenant for the remainder of the seller's term, but that permission may not be unreasonably withheld.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "buyer_approval_standard": { "status": "regulated", "value": "Approval may not be unreasonably withheld, and a rejected buyer means the selling tenant must be told the reasons in writing.", "detail": "The act sets no deadline for the park's decision on a buyer. Where a tenant asks instead to sublet, the act does set one: the park has ten days to ask for more information and 30 days to respond, consent may not be unreasonably withheld, and failure to respond counts as consent.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(1), (i)(3)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(t)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "age_size_style_rejection_prohibited": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The subdivision on selling a home says nothing about the age, size or style of the home as a reason to refuse it. What applies instead is the requirement that approval of a buyer not be unreasonably withheld and that park rules not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(f)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "presale_repairs_may_be_required": { "status": "not_regulated", "value": null, "detail": "The subdivision on selling a home does not address repairs, upgrades or improvements as a condition of a sale in place, and no other part of the act does. What applies instead is the lease and the park rules, which must not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(f)(1)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null }, "for_sale_sign_protected": { "status": "regulated", "value": true, "detail": "The park may not prohibit a for sale sign on a home. It may set a maximum size by rule, so long as the rule allows a sign up to the smaller of three feet by two feet or the largest size the law allows.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(f)(5)" } ], "effective_from": null, "sub_state_variation": null } }, "fhfa_protections": { "p1": { "meets": true, "basis": "The park owner must offer every tenant a lease of at least one year before occupancy and renew that offer each year, eviction is limited to the grounds the act lists, and a retaliatory refusal to renew is prohibited.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(e), (b), (n)(2)" } ] }, "p2": { "meets": true, "basis": "New York requires at least 90 days' written notice before any increase in rent, fees, charges or assessments, and allows only one increase a year.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(g)(3), (x)(1)" } ] }, "p3": { "meets": true, "basis": "An eviction for nonpayment requires a demand for the rent served with at least 30 days' written notice, and no late charge may be imposed on a rent payment received within ten days of its due date.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(2), (r)" } ] }, "p4": { "meets": true, "basis": "A park owner may not deny a tenant the right to sell the home inside the park on 20 days' notice, and may not require the home to be moved out solely because it has been sold.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(1)" } ] }, "p5": { "meets": "partial", "basis": "New York gives no window to sell the home in place after an eviction; it places the time before the eviction instead, requiring at least 90 days' notice before a warrant is carried out, and 30 days where the ground is nonpayment or an imminent health or safety threat.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(d)(1)-(3)" } ] }, "p6": { "meets": true, "basis": "The park may reserve the right to approve the buyer as a tenant for the remainder of the seller's term but may not unreasonably withhold it, and in parks with four or more homes a tenant also has a right to sublease on a ten-day information request and 30-day response, with silence counting as consent.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(i)(1), (t)" } ] }, "p7": { "meets": true, "basis": "A park may not prohibit a for sale sign on a home, and a size rule must still allow a sign up to the smaller of three feet by two feet or the largest size the law allows.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(f)(5)" } ] }, "p8": { "meets": true, "basis": "Homeowners must be notified when the park owner markets the park or receives an offer it intends to accept, with 140 days to exercise the right to buy, and a change of use requires two years' notice before eviction proceedings may begin.", "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b)(6)" } ] } }, "pending_legislation": [ { "bill": "S228-A / A340-A", "summary": "Would require a park owner to give written justification, with supporting documentation available to residents on request, for any increase above three percent, and would require that ordinary maintenance or repair costs offered as justification be shown to have been necessary to meet the park owner's warranty of habitability obligation and no larger than the actual and reasonable cost of the work. It would also renumber the separate campgrounds section.", "status": "Passed the Senate on March 17, 2026 and the Assembly on April 20, 2026. The official bill pages record no later action, so it is not law.", "checked": "2026-08-18", "lifecycle": "passed_both_chambers", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null }, { "bill": "S7343", "summary": "Would create a new category of lease-hold retirement community in a county of more than one million people that borders only one other county, and would apply the manufactured home park rent-increase rules to it.", "status": "In the Senate Judiciary Committee; referred January 7, 2026.", "checked": "2026-08-18", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null }, { "bill": "S8698", "summary": "Would define the capital improvement costs that can justify an increase above three percent by reference to the definition in the Tax Law.", "status": "In the Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development Committee; referred January 7, 2026.", "checked": "2026-08-18", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null } ], "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 233-b", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/233-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 7 (section list)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/A7", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "L 2023, ch. 593 (S5881-A) bill page", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2023/S5881", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "S228-A bill page (2025-2026)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S228/amendment/A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "A340-A bill page (2025-2026)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/A340/amendment/A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "S7343 bill page (2025-2026)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S7343", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "S8698 bill page (2025-2026)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S8698", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "NYS Homes and Community Renewal, summary of park tenants' rights under § 233", "url": "https://hcr.ny.gov/summary-new-york-state-manufactured-home-park-tenants-rights-under-section-233-real-property-law", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York regulates lot tenancies in manufactured home parks under Real Property Law § 233, one of the most detailed manufactured housing acts in the country: lot rent may rise only once a year, on at least 90 days' written notice, and by no more than three percent unless the park owner can point to higher operating expenses, higher property taxes or capital improvement costs. Even then the increase may not exceed six percent without a court-approved temporary hardship increase, and a homeowner has 90 days to ask a court to declare an increase above three percent unjustified, paying the disputed amount into escrow in the meantime without risk of eviction. A park owner may end a lot tenancy only on the grounds the act lists, and closing or changing the use of the park takes two years' notice plus a court-ordered stipend of up to $15,000 for each homeowner. When a park is offered for sale, § 233-a gives a homeowners' association representing more than half the homeowners the right to match the offer, with 60 days to signal intent and 140 days to deliver a matching offer.", "notes": [ { "label": "Which parks are covered", "text": "The act reaches any privately owned parcel accommodating three or more manufactured homes occupied for year-round living. Two of its rules have their own thresholds: the retaliation protections and the sublease right apply in parks with four or more homes, and the interest-bearing deposit rule applies where there are six or more lots." }, { "label": "Homes the park rents out are partly covered", "text": "Someone who rents a manufactured home from the park, rather than renting a lot for their own home, is a tenant under the act, but the eviction warrant in that case may be carried out on 72 hours' notice rather than the longer periods that protect a lot tenant. Rent-to-own contracts have their own requirements, including treble economic damages for a wrongful eviction." }, { "label": "Rent increases include fees and utilities", "text": "For the purposes of the three percent limit, rent means all costs, including rent, fees, charges, assessments and utilities, so a park cannot stay under the limit by moving costs into a separate charge. Parks under a government agreement that preserves affordable housing or otherwise limits increases are outside the rent-increase section." }, { "label": "The sixty-month rule cites a certification the sale rules no longer carry", "text": "The act bars a change-of-use eviction for sixty months after closing where the purchaser certified it did not intend to change the use of the land. That certification was part of the park-sale section before it was rewritten in October 2023 and no longer appears there." }, { "label": "The sale section carries no penalty of its own", "text": "Real Property Law § 233-a sets out the notice and the right to match but states no damages or penalty for a breach. The Commissioner's injunction power and the civil penalty of up to $1,500 for each violation belong to § 233." }, { "label": "What the act does not reach", "text": "There is no abandoned-home procedure, no rule on submetering, no window to sell or move a home after a tenancy ends, no bar on refusing a home because of its age, size or style, and no statute saying whether a city, town or village may regulate park lot rents." }, { "label": "Where the state numbers are published", "text": "Every park owner files a registration statement with New York State Homes and Community Renewal by January 1 each year, listing owners, tenants, services and current park rules, and the agency publishes an annual report of that data on its website without personally identifying anyone." } ] }, "application_screening_fees": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-25", "verified_by_method": "Direct read of the full text of N.Y. Real Property Law § 238-a and of General Business Law §§ 380-c, 380-i, 380-l and 380-m on the New York State Senate's Open Legislation site, together with General Obligations Law §§ 7-103 and 7-108 for the deposit boundary and the Real Property Law article 7 and General Business Law article 25 section lists for the negative sweep, plus a review of 2025 and 2026 session bills on the Legislature's own bill pages.", "application_fee_cap": "No application or processing fee is permitted. The only application-stage charge allowed is reimbursement for a background check and a credit check, capped for both together at the actual cost or $20, whichever is less.\n\nNew York bars a landlord, lessor, sub-lessor or grantor from demanding any payment for the processing, review or acceptance of an application, and from demanding any other payment before or at the start of the tenancy, unless another statute or regulation provides for that payment. The single exception written into the section is reimbursement for a background check and a credit check, and the two together may not exceed the actual cost or twenty dollars, whichever is less. The rule is statewide and has no small-landlord or unit-count exemption. Entrance fees at continuing care retirement communities, licensed assisted living providers, licensed adult care facilities, senior residential communities that have filed an offering plan with the Attorney General, and not-for-profit independent retirement communities offering personal emergency response, housekeeping, transportation and meals are outside the ban. A cooperative housing corporation may charge a prospective purchasing shareholder a managing-agent or transfer-agent fee.", "fee_limited_to_actual_cost": true, "screening_fee_rules": "One cumulative charge for the background check and credit check together; it must be waived where the applicant supplies a recent check, and it may not be collected unless the applicant first receives a copy of the check and the screening company's receipt or invoice.\n\nThe cap applies to the two checks combined rather than to each separately, so a landlord cannot charge twenty dollars for a credit check and twenty dollars again for a background check. Collection is conditioned: the charge may not be taken unless the applicant is given a copy of the background check or credit check along with the receipt or invoice from the company that ran it, which in practice means the screening has to happen and be documented. The charge must be waived where the applicant hands over a copy of a background check or credit check run in the previous thirty days. A cooperative housing corporation may recover the full actual cost, above twenty dollars, from someone applying to become a unit owner or shareholder; where that cooperative is supervised under article two, four, five or eleven of the private housing finance law, the fee must be reasonable and approved by the supervising agency.", "receipt_required": true, "refund_required": null, "refund_rules": null, "disclosure_rules": "Before the screening charge is collected the applicant must receive a copy of the background or credit check and the screening company's receipt or invoice; separately, an investigative consumer report requires advance written notice and the applicant's authorization.\n\nThe first duty sits in the fee statute itself: the charge may not be collected until the applicant has been given the check and the invoice or receipt for it. The second sits in New York's fair credit reporting article and applies to an investigative consumer report, meaning one built in part from personal interviews. Such a report may not be obtained unless the applicant has first been given notice and has authorized it, and the notice must say that a report may be requested and that on written request the applicant will be told whether one was requested and the name and address of the reporting agency, along with the right to inspect and receive a copy from that agency. New York does not currently require a landlord to publish or hand over its screening criteria in advance; bills to add that duty are before the Legislature.", "adverse_action_rules": "State law requires a denial notice naming residential rentals: where a rental or lease is denied, or its charge increased, wholly or partly because of a consumer report, the user of the report must tell the applicant, name the reporting agency and give its address, and state the right to inspect and receive a copy.\n\nNew York's own fair credit reporting article puts the duty on the user of the report and lists residential rentals and leases expressly alongside credit and insurance, so this is a state obligation and not a restatement of the parallel federal rule. The duty is triggered by denial or by an increased charge, and it applies where the report was any part of the reason. A second subdivision requires the user to give reasons for an adverse action, but by its terms that one is limited to evaluating an application for credit and is keyed to the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, so it does not carry into the ordinary rental denial. Users are also barred from passing a report on to anyone without a legitimate business need connected to a transaction involving that person.", "reusable_report_rules": "Thirty-day window: where the applicant provides a copy of a background check or credit check conducted within the past thirty days, the landlord must waive the screening charge.\n\nNew York's portability rule works on the fee rather than on the report. The statute directs that the charge be waived when the applicant supplies a copy of a check run in the previous thirty days, so an applicant who brings a recent report pays nothing at the application stage. The section stops there: it does not say the landlord must accept that report in place of running its own screening, it sets no standard for what makes a supplied report acceptable beyond how recent it is, and it creates no marketplace, certification or applicant-pays program of the kind some other states have adopted.", "holding_deposit_rules": "A separate holding fee or deposit to reserve a unit is not permitted; the prohibition covers any payment demanded before or at the beginning of the tenancy except the capped screening charge and payments another statute or regulation authorizes.\n\nThe application-fee ban is written broadly and is not limited to money labeled an application fee. It reaches any other payment, fee or charge demanded before or at the start of the tenancy, which takes in a deposit or fee to hold a unit while a lease is prepared. The exception for payments that another statute or regulation provides for is what preserves rent and the security deposit, which the General Obligations Law caps at one month's rent for a unit that is not rent stabilized. New York has no statute that uses the term holding deposit or sets rules for how such money would be handled, because the underlying charge is not allowed in the first place. The housing-type and cooperative exceptions to the fee ban apply here as well.", "junk_fee_limits": null, "penalty_for_violation": "The fee rules themselves carry no damages provision, but any lease or contract term waiving or limiting them is void; the consumer-report notice duties carry actual damages, punitive damages for a knowing and willful failure, and costs and attorney's fees.\n\nTwo different enforcement pictures apply. The application-fee and screening-fee rules in the Real Property Law contain no civil penalty, damages figure or enforcement subdivision; what backs them is a provision making void as against public policy any lease or contract term that waives or limits the section, so a landlord cannot contract out of the cap or the waiver duty. The notice duties under New York's fair credit reporting article are backed by money: a consumer reporting agency or a user of a report that knowingly and willfully fails to comply is liable for actual damages, punitive damages in whatever amount the court allows, and the costs of a successful action with reasonable attorney's fees; where the failure is negligent rather than knowing, liability is for actual damages plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees. Those remedies reach the rental denial notice and the investigative-report notice and authorization duties.", "pending_legislation": [ { "bill": "A9294-A (2025-2026)", "summary": "Would add a new section 238-b to the Real Property Law requiring a landlord to give a prospective tenant a written statement of the tenant screening criteria used to evaluate applications before accepting any fee, deposit or screening information. The statement would have to list credit-history and minimum-score thresholds, criminal-history policy, prior rental history including past evictions, minimum income, and reference requirements, say whether a tenant screening report will be obtained and from which agency, and summarize the applicant's rights under federal and New York law regarding consumer reports. It would take effect on the one hundred twentieth day after becoming law.", "status": "On the Assembly floor calendar; ordered to third reading on May 29, 2026 after being reported from the housing, codes and rules committees. No passage vote is shown in either chamber.", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null, "checked": "2026-08-25" }, { "bill": "S10343 (2025-2026)", "summary": "Senate companion to A9294. Would require a landlord to give a prospective tenant a written statement of the tenant screening criteria used to evaluate applications before accepting any fee, deposit or screening information. It would take effect one hundred twenty days after becoming law.", "status": "In Senate committee; referred to the judiciary committee on May 14, 2026.", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null, "checked": "2026-08-25" }, { "bill": "S363-B (2025-2026)", "summary": "The New York junk fee prevention act. Would add a new article 22-C to the General Business Law requiring clear and conspicuous pricing and total-price disclosure. Its text does not name residential rentals or leases. It would take effect on the sixtieth day after becoming law.", "status": "Passed the Senate on May 12, 2026 by a vote of 40 to 20 and is now in the Assembly consumer affairs and protection committee.", "lifecycle": "passed_one_chamber", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null, "checked": "2026-08-25" }, { "bill": "A9604-A (2025-2026)", "summary": "Assembly version of the New York junk fee prevention act, reaching every offer or advertisement that carries a price for goods or services sold to consumers in the state. It would take effect on the sixtieth day after becoming law.", "status": "In Assembly committee; amended and recommitted to the consumer affairs and protection committee on April 21, 2026.", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null, "checked": "2026-08-25" }, { "bill": "S571 (2025-2026)", "summary": "Would write broker's fees expressly into the existing ban on payments demanded before or at the beginning of a tenancy in Real Property Law section 238-a, making the statewide rule that a landlord may not pass its own broker's fee to a tenant. It would take effect immediately on becoming law.", "status": "In Senate committee; referred to the judiciary committee on January 8, 2025 and re-referred there on January 7, 2026.", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null, "checked": "2026-08-25" }, { "bill": "S6471-A (2025-2026)", "summary": "Would regulate automated housing decision making tools, including notice to applicants that such a tool is in use and an explanation when an application is denied. The denial-explanation requirement would sit alongside the existing state denial-notice duty for consumer reports. It would take effect immediately on becoming law.", "status": "In Senate committee; amended and recommitted to the investigations and government operations committee, and re-referred there on January 7, 2026.", "lifecycle": "introduced", "signed_on": null, "effective_on": null, "checked": "2026-08-25" } ], "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(a)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(b)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-103", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-103", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 380-c", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/380-C", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(a), (b)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 380-i", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/380-I", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(a)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 380-i", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/380-I", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(b), (c)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-108", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-108", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(3)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 380-l", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/380-L", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 380-m", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/380-M", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 238-a", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/238-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(a), (1)(b), (3)" } ], "summary_plain": "New York bans rental application and processing fees outright and allows only one application-stage charge: reimbursement for a background check and a credit check, capped for both together at the actual cost or twenty dollars, whichever is less. The ban is broader than the fee itself, reaching any payment demanded before or at the start of the tenancy unless another statute or regulation authorizes it, which is what leaves rent and the security deposit in place while ruling out a separate fee to hold a unit. The screening charge must be waived where the applicant supplies a background check or credit check run within the previous thirty days, and it may not be collected at all unless the landlord first gives the applicant a copy of the check and the screening company's receipt or invoice. State law also requires a denial notice: where a residential rental is denied or its charge increased because of a consumer report, the applicant must be told, given the reporting agency's name and address, and told of the right to inspect and receive a copy. New York does not require a landlord to disclose its screening criteria in advance and sets no refund rules for application-stage money, and it has no rental advertising or all-in pricing statute.", "notes": [ { "label": "The cap is for both checks combined", "text": "Twenty dollars is the ceiling for the background check and the credit check together, not for each one. Where the checks actually cost less than twenty dollars, the lower figure is the limit." }, { "label": "The twenty-dollar figure is fixed", "text": "It is written into the statute as a flat amount. It is not adjusted for inflation and no state agency publishes an updated number each year." }, { "label": "Housing types outside the fee ban", "text": "Entrance fees are not covered at continuing care retirement communities, licensed assisted living providers, licensed adult care facilities, senior residential communities that have filed an offering plan with the Attorney General, and not-for-profit independent retirement communities that offer personal emergency response, housekeeping, transportation and meals." }, { "label": "Cooperative purchases are treated differently", "text": "Someone applying to become a unit owner or shareholder in a cooperative housing corporation may be charged a managing-agent or transfer-agent fee, and may be charged the full actual cost of screening above twenty dollars. Where the cooperative is supervised under the private housing finance law, the fee must be reasonable and approved by the supervising agency." }, { "label": "The portability rule waives the fee, not the screening", "text": "A recent report supplied by the applicant removes the charge. The statute does not say the landlord must use that report instead of running its own, and it sets no standard for the report beyond it having been conducted within the past thirty days." }, { "label": "What the fee statute does not reach", "text": "It sets no refund rules, no duty to disclose screening criteria before collecting, and no penalty of its own. Its backstop is that any lease or contract term waiving or limiting it is void." }, { "label": "Screening criteria disclosure is pending, not law", "text": "Bills in both chambers would require a written statement of screening criteria before any fee, deposit or screening information is accepted. Neither has been enacted, so no such duty applies today." }, { "label": "Local rules can add to this", "text": "New York City has its own requirements on disclosing fees in rental listings and on who pays a landlord's broker. Those are city rules; the statewide rules described here come from state law." }, { "label": "How the cost limit works", "text": "The permitted background-check and credit-check charge is tied to what the screening actually cost. The combined charge may be no more than the actual cost of the two checks or twenty dollars, whichever is the smaller figure, so actual cost sets the ceiling whenever it falls below twenty dollars. The twenty-dollar figure is a flat amount written into the statute; it is not indexed and there is no annually published number to follow." }, { "label": "What the receipt duty covers", "text": "A documentation duty attaches to the money before it changes hands. The landlord may not collect the background-check or credit-check charge unless the applicant is given the receipt or invoice from the company that conducted the check, together with a copy of the check itself. The duty runs to the screening company's receipt or invoice rather than to a receipt for the applicant's own payment; New York does not separately require a payment receipt for application-stage money." }, { "label": "When money must come back", "text": "Real Property Law § 238-a, the section that carries the application-fee rules, contains no provision requiring return of application-stage money in any circumstance. Its subdivisions cover the fee ban and the capped screening charge, late rent charges, dishonored rent checks, and the voiding of waivers, and nothing more. New York controls this money before it is collected, through a hard cap, a waiver duty and a rule barring collection without documentation, rather than through a duty to give money back afterwards. The return duties in the General Obligations Law are addressed to money deposited or advanced as security for performance, which means security deposits." }, { "label": "Refunds", "text": "No trigger of the usual kinds appears in Real Property Law § 238-a: nothing about the unit being filled or withdrawn, nothing about the applicant pulling out, nothing about screening that is paid for but never run, and no deadline or mechanic for returning money. What the section does instead is stop an overcharge before it happens, by capping the screening charge at the lesser of actual cost or twenty dollars and by barring collection until the applicant has the check and the screening company's receipt or invoice in hand." }, { "label": "Advertising and fee transparency", "text": "The state's general consumer protection provision on deceptive acts and practices sits in article 22-A of the General Business Law and does not by its terms address rental advertising or rental fees, so it is context rather than a rule for this topic. Two junk-fee bills are moving in the 2025 and 2026 session, one of which has passed the Senate, but neither is law and neither names residential rentals or leases. In practice the application-stage question is already answered by the fee ban in the Real Property Law: there is nothing extra to disclose because there is nothing extra a landlord may charge an applicant." } ] }, "deposit_interest": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-28", "verified_by_method": "Direct read of New York General Obligations Law section 7-103 as published by the State Senate, all four subdivisions including 2-a and 2-b read word for word, together with sections 7-105, 7-107, 7-108 and 7-109 for the remedies landscape; and the enacted text of the 2025 amendment that became chapter 436 of the Laws of 2025, whose bracketed matter shows the pre-amendment section 7-107 and confirms that section 7-103 and its interest rules were left untouched. No case law and no Division of Housing and Community Renewal regulation was read, and none is relied on here.", "interest_required": "conditional", "rate_mechanism": "prevailing_rate", "current_rate_plain": null, "rate_rules": "The statute names a market benchmark rather than a percentage. Where the money is deposited for the rental of property containing six or more family dwelling units, § 7-103(2-a) requires it to go into an interest-bearing account in a banking organization within the state \"which account shall earn interest at a rate which shall be the prevailing rate earned by other such deposits made with banking organizations in such area\" — the prevailing rate in the area, not whatever the landlord's own bank happens to post. Out of that interest the landlord may take an allowance: § 7-103(2) entitles a landlord who deposits the security money in an interest-bearing account to \"a sum equivalent to one per cent per annum upon the security money so deposited, which shall be in lieu of all other administrative and custodial expenses.\" The one percent is measured on the deposit itself, and what the tenant takes is what the statute calls \"the balance of the interest paid by the banking organization.\" The allowance exists only where an interest-bearing account is actually used, and it stands in place of every other administrative or custodial charge, so no further fee may be added on top of it.", "accrual_payment_rules": "§ 7-103(2) gives the tenant's share of the interest three destinations: it \"shall either be held in trust by the person with whom such deposit or advance shall be made, until repaid or applied for the use or rental of the leased premises, or annually paid to the person making the deposit of security money.\" Held in trust until the deposit is repaid, applied to the rent, or paid over annually — the section sets out the alternatives without saying who chooses among them, so the choice cannot be described as the tenant's. Where a lease terminates at a time other than when a banking organization in the area regularly pays interest, § 7-103(2-b) requires the landlord to pay over to the tenant \"such interest as he is able to collect at the date of such lease termination.\" Any provision of a lease by which the tenant waives any provision of § 7-103 is absolutely void (§ 7-103(3)).", "coverage_conditions": "The interest-bearing account is mandatory where the money is deposited for the rental of property containing six or more family dwelling units (§ 7-103(2-a)). Below that threshold there is no duty to place the deposit in an interest-bearing account, but the rest of § 7-103 still applies: the money continues to be the tenant's, held in trust and not to be mingled with the landlord's personal funds (subd. 1), and a landlord who does place it with a banking organization must give the written notice subdivision 2 requires and must use an organization having a place of business within the state. A landlord of a smaller building who chooses an interest-bearing account falls under subdivision 2 from that point, including the one percent allowance and the tenant's right to the balance of the interest.", "segregation_required": true, "interest_bearing_account_required": true, "custody_rules": "Deposits are trust money. § 7-103(1) provides that the money, \"with interest accruing thereon, if any, until repaid or so applied, shall continue to be the money of the person making such deposit or advance and shall be held in trust by the person with whom such deposit or advance shall be made and shall not be mingled with the personal moneys or become an asset\" of the person receiving it. Where the landlord places the deposit with a banking organization, the organization must have a place of business within the state, and the landlord must notify each tenant in writing of its name and address and of the amount of the deposit (§ 7-103(2)). At six or more family dwelling units the account must be interest-bearing and must earn the prevailing rate in the area (§ 7-103(2-a)).", "penalty_for_violation": "§ 7-103 carries no penalty of its own for an interest failure — no multiplier, no fixed sum, no fee award. What backs the duty is the status of the money: the deposit and the interest on it continue to be the tenant's property held in trust (§ 7-103(1)), so a landlord who keeps them answers on ordinary trust principles rather than under a statutory damages clause. Public enforcement runs through § 7-109, which lets the attorney general bring an action or proceeding to compel compliance with the title and enjoin any violation, with discretionary costs of investigation not exceeding two thousand dollars against a respondent. Those costs are the attorney general's, not a sum a tenant recovers. The damages provisions tenants meet more often — the forfeiture for a missed fourteen-day return and punitive damages of up to twice the deposit for a willful violation, in § 7-108 — attach to the duty to return the deposit and not to the interest rules of § 7-103.", "local_rules": null, "rate_tables": null, "citations": [ { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-103 (trust status; the one percent administration allowance)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-103", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-103 (six or more family dwelling units; prevailing area rate)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-103", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(2-a), (2-b)" }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-109 (attorney general enforcement)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-109", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "N.Y. Gen. Oblig. Law § 7-107 (deposits by tenants of rent-stabilized units)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GOB/7-107", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York requires interest on a security deposit whenever the property has six or more family dwelling units: the money must sit in an interest-bearing account at a New York banking organization, and the interest belongs to the tenant. The account must earn the prevailing rate in the area for such deposits, so there is no statewide figure. The landlord may keep, as administration expenses, one percent a year of the deposit itself — not one percent of the interest — and that allowance takes the place of every other administrative or custodial charge, with the balance of the interest going to the tenant. Below six units the deposit need not be interest-bearing at all, though it is still the tenant's money held in trust and may not be mingled with the landlord's own funds, and a landlord of a smaller building who does use an interest-bearing account comes under the same one percent rule. Any lease clause by which a tenant waives these protections is absolutely void.", "notes": [ { "label": "One percent of the deposit, not of the interest", "text": "The allowance is \"one per cent per annum upon the security money so deposited\" — one percent of the deposit principal each year. It is widely misreported as one percent of the interest earned, which would leave the tenant ninety-nine percent of it. The next sentence of the subdivision confirms the structure by giving the tenant \"the balance of the interest paid by the banking organization,\" that is, what is left after the landlord's one percent of principal comes out." }, { "label": "A low market rate can leave the tenant nothing", "text": "Because the landlord's allowance is a percentage of the deposit and the tenant's share is the remainder of the interest, an account earning less than one percent a year can be entirely consumed by the allowance. There is no guaranteed return to the tenant, and none of these provisions requires the landlord to make up a shortfall." }, { "label": "Whose rate applies", "text": "At six or more family dwelling units the account must earn \"the prevailing rate earned by other such deposits made with banking organizations in such area.\" It is an area benchmark, not the posted rate of whichever bank the landlord picked — a distinction from states whose statutes tie the tenant to the rate of the institution actually holding the money." }, { "label": "The statute does not say who chooses", "text": "The tenant's share of the interest may be held in trust until the deposit is repaid, applied to the rent, or paid over annually. Those are the alternatives the statute permits, but it assigns the choice to no one, and describing them as options the tenant elects among reads something into § 7-103 that is not there." }, { "label": "The two thousand dollar figure", "text": "§ 7-109 lets a court award the attorney general costs of investigation not exceeding two thousand dollars against a respondent in an enforcement action. That money goes to the State as the cost of investigating, and it is repeatedly written up as a penalty a tenant can collect. There is no tenant-side penalty for an interest violation in § 7-103 at all." }, { "label": "The 2025 amendment for rent-stabilized units", "text": "Chapter 436 of the Laws of 2025, signed October 16, 2025 and taking effect on the thirtieth day afterward for leases, rental agreements and renewals, rewrote § 7-107 to give tenants of rent-stabilized and emergency tenant-protection units a one-month cap, full refundability with enumerated deductions, pre-occupancy and pre-vacating inspections, a fourteen-day itemized return and an anti-waiver clause. It does not touch § 7-103, so the deposit-interest rules are unchanged by it." } ] }, "habitability": { "topic_verified": "2026-08-29", "verified_by_method": "Direct reading, on the New York State Senate's official law pages, of Real Property Law §§ 235-b, 235-a and 223-b; Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law §§ 755 and 756 and article 7-A (§§ 769, 770, 775, 780, 781, 782 and 783); Multiple Dwelling Law §§ 3, 4, 78, 80 and 302-a, the last read end to end including subdivision 3 paragraphs a through e; and Multiple Residence Law §§ 3, 4, 8, 11, 25 and 174 — with each chapter's own application section read to fix the geographic and building-size boundaries. The majority opinion in Park West Management Corp. v. Mitchell, 47 N.Y.2d 316 (1979), was read in full in the official reporter text.", "duty_source": "statutory_and_case_law", "duty_source_plain": "Two sources do independent work. Real Property Law § 235-b implies into every written or oral lease or rental agreement for residential premises a warranty that the premises and the areas within the landlord's control are fit for human habitation, are in a condition matching the uses reasonably intended by the parties, and subject the occupants to no conditions endangering or detrimental to their life, health or safety. The statute stops there — it states no notice requirement, no cure period, no remedy and no damages measure. Park West Management Corp. v. Mitchell, 47 N.Y.2d 316 (1979), a unanimous Court of Appeals decision, supplies what the statute omits: the damages formula, the rule that a substantial code violation is prima facie evidence of unfitness without being an automatic breach, the reasonable-person test for what counts as a breach, and the limit that a landlord is not an absolute insurer of amenities that do not affect habitability.", "applicability": null, "standards_source": "mixed", "standards_plain": "Three layers do real work, and they cover different buildings. Statewide, § 235-b states a general standard with no list at all: fit for human habitation, in a condition matching the uses reasonably intended, and free of conditions endangering or detrimental to life, health or safety, with common areas and areas within the landlord's control expressly inside the warranty and both latent and patent defects covered. The Court of Appeals filled in what that means — a substantial violation of a housing, building or sanitation code is prima facie evidence that the premises are not habitable, but a violation is not automatically a breach, and it is threats to the health and safety of the tenant, not code violations as such, that set the warranty's reach; the court's own examples were insect or rodent infestation, insufficient heat and plumbing facilities, significantly dangerous electrical outlets or wiring, and inadequate sanitation facilities. The third layer is specific duties for buildings housing three or more families: the Multiple Dwelling Law requires every multiple dwelling, its roof and its lot to be kept in good repair and requires the owner to keep it clean and free of vermin, dirt, filth and garbage, to clean every public and service part, to take up and clean public-area carpets at least once a year, to paint or paper interior wall surfaces and repaint or repaper them whenever needed to keep them sanitary, and to build rat-proof any dwelling erected after January 1, 1947. The Multiple Residence Law states the parallel repair-and-cleanliness duty for the rest of the state. Local housing codes supply the rest.", "heat_duty_type": null, "heat_plain": null, "waivability": "not_waivable", "waivability_plain": "Section 235-b(2) makes any agreement by a lessee or tenant waiving or modifying the warranty void as contrary to public policy, and the Court of Appeals put the same point in structural terms: because the landlord holds ultimate control of and responsibility for the building, the duty to maintain it is NONDELEGABLE and NONWAIVABLE. New York has no tenant-delegation carve-out of the kind most states write for single-family houses — nothing in § 235-b lets the parties shift repair duties to the tenant by agreement. Article 7-A carries its own anti-waiver rule: any lease provision waiving a benefit of that article for a tenant, resident or occupant is against public policy and void. There is one legislative exception, and it is not a private waiver at all — RPAPL § 783 suspends the § 235-b defence against rent claimed by a court-appointed article 7-A administrator, unless the conditions were caused by that administrator's own unreasonable performance.", "notice_cure_days": null, "notice_cure_plain": "New York states no notice period and no cure window for the warranty. Section 235-b sets neither, and Park West sets neither — the opinion does not discuss tenant notice at all, so nothing in it can be read as imposing one. The warranty turns on the condition of the premises and on the landlord's satisfactory maintenance of them, and the fact-finder weighs the severity of the violation, the duration of the conditions and the effectiveness of the steps the landlord took to abate them. The specific statutory mechanisms have their own triggers instead. A rent-deposit stay under RPAPL § 755 needs either proof of a municipal notice or order to remove a nuisance or violation or to make repairs — which additionally puts the burden on the landlord to disprove the condition as the notice describes it — or proof of the condition itself. In New York City, the Multiple Dwelling Law's rent-impairing-violation defence runs on six months of the violation remaining uncorrected after notice of it, tolled where the owner files plans within three months and files amendments within thirty days of a disapproval.", "repair_deduct": { "posture": "none_no_authority", "cap_plain": null, "rules_plain": "No New York statute authorises a tenant to repair a condition and deduct the cost from rent, and no appellate court has recognised such a right — the only New York decisions stating one are New York City Civil Court decisions from 1971 and 1981, the earlier of which adopted a New Jersey rule four years before § 235-b existed. Park West, the Court of Appeals' own survey of the subject, does not recognise the remedy and expressly declines to comment on the availability of remedies not before it. What actually does the work people mean by repair-and-deduct in New York is RPAPL § 755(3): while a stay is in force, the court may direct — on three days' notice to all parties — the release of the deposited rent to a contractor or materialman to pay properly presented bills for maintaining and making necessary repairs to the building, including fuel, electricity, gas, janitorial services and repairs necessary to remove violations, on a showing by the tenant that the landlord is not meeting those obligations. It is repair funded from rent, but ordered by a court rather than performed by the tenant. A tenant who repairs and deducts unilaterally has no statutory defence for the deduction in a nonpayment proceeding; the tenant's route to money is the rent abatement the warranty provides." }, "withholding_escrow": { "posture": "available", "mechanisms": [ "defensive_withholding", "court_or_agency_escrow", "rent_into_court_to_defend" ], "rules_plain": "New York's routes are structurally different from each other and should not be collapsed. First, the warranty itself works defensively: because the tenant's duty to pay rent is coextensive with the landlord's duty to maintain the premises, a tenant may answer a summary nonpayment proceeding by counterclaiming or pleading the breach and taking a percentage reduction of the contracted-for rent as a setoff, or may sue for the money in a plenary action. No deposit, certification or filing comes first. Second, RPAPL § 755 is a statewide court rent-deposit and stay: on proof of a municipal notice or order, or of the condition itself, where the condition constructively evicts the tenant from part of the premises or is, or is likely to become, dangerous to life, health or safety, the court may stay a dispossess proceeding or an action for rent. The tenant gets the stay only by depositing the rent then due with the clerk — measured by the preceding month's liability or the monthly rent reserved — and the stay can be vacated on three days' notice if the tenant misses a deposit by more than five days after it falls due. No stay is granted where the tenant's own wilful or negligent act created the condition, and costs against a tenant whose wilful act caused it are capped at twenty-five dollars. RPAPL § 756 is the mandatory sibling: where utilities are discontinued in part of a dwelling because the landlord failed to pay for service the landlord contracted for, any dispossess proceeding or action for rent SHALL be stayed until the landlord pays and service is restored — no deposit required. Third, in cities of four hundred thousand or more, meaning New York City, Multiple Dwelling Law § 302-a lets a tenant stop paying rent while a recorded rent-impairing violation stays uncorrected six months after notice; to raise it as a defence the resident must affirmatively plead and prove the facts and must deposit the rent sought with the clerk AT THE TIME OF FILING THE ANSWER, which vitiates the owner's right to terminate the lease for nonpayment, and the clerk pays the money to whichever side prevails. Fourth, in New York City and in Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties, one-third or more of a building's tenants — or, in the city, the housing-maintenance-code commissioner — may bring an article 7-A proceeding for a judgment directing rents into court and their use to remedy conditions dangerous to life, health or safety, with the court able to appoint an administrator to run the building." }, "termination": { "posture": "none_stated", "rules_plain": "New York states no habitability-specific right to end the lease. Section 235-b answers a breach with a reduction in what the tenant owes rather than with a notice-and-terminate sequence, and neither the statute nor Park West supplies termination machinery. A tenant who leaves is relying on the general law of leases rather than on the warranty statute, and the practical New York remedy for an unfit dwelling is the rent abatement, the court rent-deposit routes, or the tenant receivership programme." }, "essential_services": { "posture": "statutory", "rules_plain": "New York gives essential-service failures distinct treatment, though not through a faster repair clock. Where utilities are discontinued in part of a dwelling because the landlord, or another person in control of it, failed to pay for service the landlord had contracted for, RPAPL § 756 makes the stay of any dispossess proceeding or rent action mandatory until the landlord pays what is owed and the utilities are restored to working order — and unlike the § 755 stay it carries no deposit requirement. Real Property Law § 235-a separately lets a residential tenant offset a utility payment against rent, and gives punitive damages against the owner of a multiple dwelling; deliberate landlord shutoffs and lockouts are covered with the eviction rules rather than here. In New York City and in Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties, a lack of heat, running water, light, electricity or adequate sewage disposal facilities, or an infestation by rodents, is a ground for an article 7-A tenant receivership proceeding with no waiting period at all — the five-day duration requirement in that section attaches only to the catch-all ground of any other condition dangerous to life, health or safety, and getting that clause boundary right matters. The Court of Appeals also named insufficient heat and plumbing facilities among the conditions that adversely affect health and safety under the warranty itself." }, "retaliation": { "posture": "statute_general", "window_days": 365, "window_plain": "One year. Where the landlord acts within a year of the tenant's protected act, retaliation is presumed and the landlord carries the burden of proving a non-retaliatory motive by a preponderance of the evidence.", "mechanism_plain": "Real Property Law § 223-b operates as a presumption that shifts the burden onto the landlord: inside the one-year window the landlord must prove a credible non-retaliatory reason for the eviction, the refusal to renew or the change in terms by a preponderance of the evidence. Coverage is broad but not universal — the section reaches all rental residential premises EXCEPT owner-occupied dwellings with fewer than four units. A related subdivision closes off a workaround: a lease clause requiring the tenant to pay a fee, penalty or other charge for making a complaint is void, and a landlord who imposes one is liable to the tenant for three times the amount.", "protected_acts_plain": "Section 223-b protects a tenant who in good faith complains about the condition of the premises and who acts to secure or enforce rights arising from the tenancy, and it separately voids any lease clause charging the tenant a fee, penalty or other charge for making a complaint, making the landlord liable for three times that amount. The protection does not extend to tenants of owner-occupied dwellings with fewer than four units." }, "damages_defenses_plain": "The damages measure comes from Park West and it is a subtraction, not a ceiling: the difference between the fair market value of the premises if they had been as warranted, AS MEASURED BY THE RENT RESERVED UNDER THE LEASE, and the value of the premises during the period of the breach. The award may take the form of money in a plenary action or of a percentage reduction of the contracted-for rent as a setoff in a summary nonpayment proceeding where the tenant counterclaims or pleads the breach as a defence — the Court of Appeals upheld a ten per cent rent reduction on the facts before it. The fact-finder weighs the severity of the violation, the duration of the conditions and the effectiveness of the steps the landlord took to abate them, and both sides may give opinion evidence on the diminution in value because both are familiar with the premises. Section 235-b(3) adds three riders: expert testimony is not required; damages attributable to a strike or labour dispute are excluded, which is precisely the class of damages Park West itself awarded before that paragraph existed; and a paragraph guards against double recovery where a rent agency has already acted. Section 235-b contains no attorney-fee provision — New York's reciprocal fee rule sits in a separate section of the Real Property Law. The Multiple Dwelling Law's rent-impairing defence carries its own machinery: four owner defences, a bad-faith sanction letting the court charge the resident the owner's reasonable costs including counsel fees up to one hundred dollars, and a hard trap — a resident who voluntarily pays rent that could have been withheld has no claim or cause of action to recover it back, a voluntary payment being anything other than one made under a judgment. In an article 7-A proceeding the owner's three defences are that the conditions did not exist or have been remedied, that they were caused by a petitioning tenant or by other residents or their families or guests, or that a tenant or resident refused the owner entry to correct them. Elsewhere the tenant-fault rules are narrow: a § 755 stay is never granted where the tenant's wilful or negligent act created the condition, and under the Multiple Dwelling Law the owner is relieved only where a violation is caused AND CONTINUED SOLELY by the tenant or those under the tenant's control, with the tenant separately liable for wilful acts and exposed to the same civil penalties as the owner.", "leading_cases": [ { "case_name": "Park West Management Corp. v. Mitchell", "reporter_cite": "47 N.Y.2d 316 (1979), 391 N.E.2d 1288, 418 N.Y.S.2d 310", "court": "New York Court of Appeals", "year": 1979, "holding_plain": "Construing Real Property Law § 235-b, a unanimous Court of Appeals held that the landlord impliedly promises that the demised premises and the areas within the landlord's control are fit for human occupation at the start of the tenancy and remain so throughout the term, that the promise reaches latent and patent defects alike and conditions caused by ordinary deterioration, work stoppages by employees, acts of third parties or natural disaster, and that the duty is nondelegable and nonwaivable — while a landlord is not an absolute insurer of amenities that do not affect habitability, and the test is whether, in the eyes of a reasonable person, defects deprive the tenant of the essential functions a residence is expected to provide. A substantial violation of a housing, building or sanitation code is prima facie evidence that the premises are not habitable, but a code violation is not an automatic breach: it may be de minimis or have no impact on habitability, and it is threats to the health and safety of the tenant, not code violations as such, that determine the warranty's reach. Damages are the difference between the fair market value of the premises if they had been as warranted, as measured by the rent reserved under the lease, and their value during the breach, awarded either as money in a plenary action or as a percentage reduction of the contracted-for rent set off in a summary nonpayment proceeding.", "url": null } ], "local_rules": "Local law matters more in New York than in almost any other state, and which local law applies turns on where the building is and how many families live in it. New York City's Housing Maintenance Code sets the city's own habitability standards, including its heat rules, and those belong on the city's own page rather than here. The Multiple Dwelling Law applies of its own force only in cities of three hundred twenty-five thousand or more, though the legislative body of any other city, town or village may adopt it by local law — an adoption that automatically brings articles one through five, ten and eleven, which include the repair and cleanliness duties, while other articles apply only if the local law enumerates them. The Multiple Residence Law covers cities under that population and all towns and villages. Both chapters reach only buildings occupied by three or more families living independently of each other. Article 7-A's tenant receivership programme runs in New York City and in Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties, and its own definition of a dwelling deliberately sweeps in garden-type maisonette projects even where their certificates of occupancy were issued for one- or two-family houses.", "citations": [ { "statute": "RPL 235-b — Warranty of habitability", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2), (3)" }, { "statute": "RPL 235-a — Tenant right to offset payments and entitlement to damages in certain cases", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/235-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)" }, { "statute": "RPL 223-b — Retaliation by landlord against tenant", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/223-B", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(5), (5-a), (6)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 755 — Stay of proceeding or action for rent upon failure to make repairs", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/755", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)(a)-(c), (2), (3), (4)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 756 — Stay of summary proceedings or actions for rent under certain conditions (landlord-caused utility discontinuance)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/756", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 769 — Article 7-A jurisdiction, court and venue (New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/769", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 770 — Article 7-A grounds and the one-third tenant threshold", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/770", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)" }, { "statute": "RPAPL 775 — Owner defenses in an article 7-A proceeding", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/775", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 780 — Waiver of article 7-A provisions void", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/780", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 782 — Article 7-A definition of 'dwelling' (three or more families; garden-type maisonette projects)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/782", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "RPAPL 783 — Defense of warranty of habitability inapplicable during an article 7-A administratorship", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPA/783", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "MDL 3 — Application of the Multiple Dwelling Law (cities of 325,000 or more; local adoption)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MDW/3", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)" }, { "statute": "MDL 4 — Definition of a multiple dwelling (three or more families living independently)", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MDW/4", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(7)" }, { "statute": "MDL 78 — Repairs", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MDW/78", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)" }, { "statute": "MDL 80 — Cleanliness", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MDW/80", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1)-(6)" }, { "statute": "MDL 302-a — Abatement of rent in the case of serious violations", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MDW/302-A", "official": true, "pinpoint": "(1), (2)a, (3)a-e" }, { "statute": "MRL 174 — Repairs and cleanliness", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MRE/174", "official": true, "pinpoint": null }, { "statute": "MRL 4 — Definitions of 'multiple dwelling' and 'private dwelling'", "url": "https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/MRE/4", "official": true, "pinpoint": null } ], "summary_plain": "New York implies into every written or oral residential lease a warranty that the premises and the areas within the landlord's control are fit for human habitation, match the uses the parties reasonably intended, and subject nobody to conditions endangering or detrimental to life, health or safety. The statute stops there — it sets no notice requirement, no cure period, and no remedy — so the working rules come from the Court of Appeals: a substantial housing, building or sanitation code violation is prima facie evidence of unfitness without being an automatic breach, and damages are the difference between the value the premises would have had as warranted, measured by the rent reserved under the lease, and their value during the breach, taken either as money or as a percentage rent reduction set off in a nonpayment case. New York gives tenants no statutory repair-and-deduct and no habitability-specific right to end the lease; the leverage is the rent abatement, plus two statewide court routes — a stay with rent deposited in court that a judge may spend on repairs and fuel, and a mandatory stay whenever the landlord's failure to pay a utility bill cuts off service. The specific building duties are narrower than they look: the Multiple Dwelling Law and the Multiple Residence Law reach only buildings housing three or more families, so for a rented one- or two-family house outside New York City the warranty and the local code are the whole of the law. Retaliation is presumed for one year after a protected act, with the landlord bearing the burden of proving another motive, except in owner-occupied buildings with fewer than four units.", "notes": [ { "label": "The one- and two-family gap", "text": "For a rented one- or two-family house anywhere outside New York City, Real Property Law § 235-b and the local code are the whole of New York's habitability law. Both the Multiple Dwelling Law and the Multiple Residence Law define a multiple dwelling as a building occupied as the residence of three or more families living independently of each other, and the Multiple Residence Law separately defines a private dwelling as one occupied by one or two families. So the specific duties — good repair, freedom from vermin, annual carpet cleaning, wall painting — do not reach a rented house. Article 7-A is the one partial exception: its definition of a dwelling sweeps in garden-type maisonette projects and similar developments even where their certificates of occupancy were issued for one- or two-family houses." }, { "label": "'As measured by the rent reserved' is not a cap", "text": "The Park West formula is a subtraction: the fair market value of the premises IF THEY HAD BEEN AS WARRANTED, as measured by the rent reserved under the lease, minus the value of the premises during the breach. The phrase modifies the first term — it supplies the as-warranted value — and says nothing about the tenant's maximum recovery. Restatements that turn it into 'damages are capped at the rent reserved' state a different proposition from the one the Court of Appeals wrote." }, { "label": "There is no notice requirement to find", "text": "Section 235-b states no notice requirement and no cure period, and the Park West opinion does not discuss tenant notice anywhere. Any source attributing a New York notice rule to that decision is attributing something the opinion does not contain. What the fact-finder weighs instead is the severity of the violation, how long the conditions lasted, and how effective the landlord's abatement steps were. The specific statutory routes do have triggers of their own — a municipal notice or order for one branch of the rent-deposit stay, six months of an uncorrected rent-impairing violation for the New York City defence." }, { "label": "No repair-and-deduct — but section 755(3) is the thing people mean", "text": "New York has no statutory repair-and-deduct and no appellate decision recognising one; the only decisions stating the right are New York City Civil Court decisions from 1971 and 1981, the earlier of which borrowed a New Jersey rule four years before § 235-b existed. The statutory mechanism that does that work is RPAPL § 755(3): during a stay, the court may release the deposited rent to a contractor or materialman for maintenance and necessary repairs — expressly including fuel, electricity, gas, janitorial services and repairs needed to remove violations — on a showing that the landlord is not meeting those obligations. The money comes out of rent, but a judge directs it." }, { "label": "The warranty defence switches off against a 7-A administrator", "text": "RPAPL § 783 provides that in any proceeding for rent brought by an administrator appointed under article 7-A, the § 235-b warranty of habitability is NOT a defence to rent accruing while the article 7-A judgment or order is in effect — unless the court finds the conditions were caused by the administrator's own failure to perform reasonably. This is a legislative suspension, not a private waiver, so it coexists with § 235-b(2)'s rule that a tenant's agreement to waive the warranty is void. It is a direct answer to the common claim that the warranty defence is always available." }, { "label": "New York City's rent-impairing defence is withhold-or-lose-it", "text": "Multiple Dwelling Law § 302-a, which applies only in cities of four hundred thousand or more, lets a resident stop paying rent while a recorded rent-impairing violation stays uncorrected six months after notice. Two features are easy to miss. To raise it as a defence, the resident must affirmatively plead and prove the facts AND deposit the rent sought with the clerk at the time of filing the answer — the deposit vitiates the owner's right to terminate the lease for nonpayment. And a resident who voluntarily pays rent that could have been withheld has no claim or cause of action to recover it back, a voluntary payment meaning anything other than one made under a judgment. Raising it in bad faith, or having caused the condition or refused entry, can cost the resident the owner's costs including counsel fees up to one hundred dollars." }, { "label": "Strike damages are the one thing Park West no longer decides", "text": "Park West arose from a seventeen-day building-employees' strike, and the Court of Appeals upheld a ten per cent rent reduction for it. Subdivision 3 of § 235-b did not then contain the paragraph that now excludes damages attributable to a strike or labour dispute — in 1979 the whole subdivision said only that the court need not require expert testimony. So the decision remains the law on the measure of damages, the code-violation rule and the scope of the warranty, but it is no longer the rule for strike-attributable damages specifically." } ] } } }