The COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 (CEEFPA) allows New York residential tenants to delay eviction. Tenants get an automatic 60-day delay[1] and an additional delay until May 1, 2021 if the tenant fills out and submits a hardship declaration form to their landlord or to the court. However, tenants don’t get either of these delays if their landlord can prove that the tenant is “persistently and unreasonably engaging in behavior that substantially infringes on the use and enjoyment of other tenants or occupants or causes a substantial safety hazard to others.”
Landlords must meet certain requirements to use this exception in order to evict tenants.
- If an eviction case was pending when the CEEFPA went into effect on December 28, 2020, and the landlord hadn’t already alleged in that case that the tenant persistently and unreasonably engaged in nuisance or unsafe behavior but now wants to make those allegations, then the landlord must file a completely new case and include these allegations. The new case must follow the usual rules for notice and service of process, as well as the notice and service of process rules in the CEEFPA.
- Landlords must provide evidence of nuisance or unsafe behavior. Allegations alone are insufficient.
- Even if a landlord obtained a court order prior to December 28, 2020 to evict a tenant based on the tenant’s “objectionable or nuisance behavior,” the court must hold a hearing to determine whether the tenant is still engaging in that behavior.
- With any new eviction case, the landlord must file an affidavit saying either that the landlord hasn’t received a hardship declaration from the tenant, or that the tenant submitted a hardship declaration, but the tenant is “persistently and unreasonably engaging in behavior that substantially infringes on the use and enjoyment of other tenants or occupants or causes a substantial safety hazard to others” along with a specific description of the behavior alleged.
[1] Eviction cases that were pending on December 28, 2020 are automatically delayed 60 days (until February 26, 2020), and all eviction cases filed between December 28, 2020 and January 27, 2021 are automatically delayed 60 days from the date those cases were filed.
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James H. Cook, Attorney at Law 