In June 2019, the New York State legislature passed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA), which overhauled landlord-tenant law. This blog post is an overview of the law’s effect on evictions and on the rental process for residential tenants in New York State.
More Delay in Non-Payment Evictions: Rent demands must now be in writing and must give the tenant 14 days to pay or leave. The HSTPA also requires landlords to send a certified letter five days after the rent was due reminding the tenant to pay. Tenants can use the landlord’s failure to send the letter as an affirmative defense in non-payment eviction proceedings. The HSTPA allows tenants 10 days to answer in non-payment eviction proceedings. Tenants also have the right to a 14-day adjournment if they raise any defenses. Eviction warrants can be vacated any time before eviction if the tenant pays all rent due, and courts have discretion to stay issuance of an eviction warrant for five days if a tenant failed to respond to the eviction proceeding.
More Delay in Holdover Evictions: Petitions must now be served between 10 and 17 days before the first court date. Landlords can no longer require tenants to provide an answer three days before the first court date, which may mean that landlords don’t have a meaningful opportunity to review the tenant’s answer. As in non-payment eviction proceedings, the HSTPA gives tenants the right to a 14-day adjournment if they raise defenses. Finally, in a holdover eviction proceeding based on a breach of the lease, if a court finds a tenant breached the lease, the court must give the tenant 30 days to fix the problem.
Courts Can Delay Evictions Up to One Year: Courts have discretion to delay evictions up to a year if tenants can prove that they can’t find appropriate housing or that moving would cause extreme hardship.
Retaliatory Eviction Presumption Expanded: The HSTPA expands the scope of the retaliation presumption when a landlord takes adverse action against a tenant who complained about problems with a rental unit. The HSTPA applies the retaliation presumption when the time period between the tenant’s complaint and the landlord’s adverse action is a year or less, rather than six months under previous law. The HSTPA also expands the retaliation presumption to non-payment proceedings, and it also applies the retaliation presumption if there are “unreasonable” rent increases. The HSTPA also adds to the tenant complaints that can trigger the presumption. Complaints about habitability, failure to repair, and other types of tenant complaints trigger the presumption, in addition to complaints about housing code violations that qualified under the old law. Additionally, under the HSTPA, tenants don’t need to complain to enforcement agencies to trigger the presumption of retaliation. Tenants can complain to their landlord or their landlord’s agent. Next, the burden on the landlords to rebut the presumption of retaliation is also greater under the HSTPA. Landlords must now prove a non-retaliatory motive for the eviction or rent increase, rather than providing a “credible explanation” required under the old law. Finally, landlords are responsible for attorney’s fees if a tenant sues for retaliatory eviction and wins.
Self-Help Evictions Have Serious Penalties: Evicting a tenant using means other than the eviction process in the courts is a class A misdemeanor. There are also civil fines between $1,000 and $10,000 per incident, along with civil fines up to $100 per day for each day that an illegally evicted tenant is not allowed to return.
Security Deposit and Rent Prepayment: Security deposits can’t exceed one month’s rent. Requiring tenants to pay rent in advance (e.g., first and last month’s rent) is prohibited.
Damages and Return of Security Deposit: Tenants have the right to a walk-through before moving in and before moving out. Landlords must return security deposits within 14 days after the tenant vacates the unit and provide an itemized list of deductions if there are any.
Blacklisting: Landlords may not consider a tenant’s previous evictions when screening tenants. Courts are no longer permitted to sell eviction information.
Application Fees and Credit Reports: Landlords can’t charge application fees. Landlords can only charge to run a credit report, and the charge can’t be more than $20. Landlords must provide the credit report to the tenant and proof of the cost of the credit report.
Late Fees: Landlords can’t charge late fees until five days after the rent was due. The late fee can’t exceed the lesser of $50 or 5% of the monthly rent.
New Notices Required for Non-Renewals and Rent Increases: For non-renewals or rent increases of 5% or more, landlords must provide tenants with 30-days’ written notice if the tenant has lived in the unit for less than a year, 60-days’ written notice if the tenant has lived in the unit a year or more but less than two years, and 90-days’ written notice if the tenant has lived in the unit two years or more.
Duty to Mitigate When a Tenant Leaves Early: If a tenant moves out before their lease is up, the landlord must make a reasonable effort to re-rent the unit if they want to try to collect the rent owed for the remainder of the lease from the tenant who vacated.
Other Aspects of the HSTPA: This blog post is a very brief overview of certain aspects of the HSTPA and is not intended to address the HSTPA in detail.
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James H. Cook, Attorney at Law 