Skip to Main Content

New York’s Eviction Moratorium Ends

 

New York State maintained a strict eviction moratorium as a safeguard for residents during the pandemic. This safeguard was said to have “prevented a cascading crisis in the state with an enormous number of struggling renters” by public officials.

This viewpoint was held onto in New York even as nearly every other state and federal moratorium ended, as New York chose to extend its moratorium time and time again. The only state in the country to match New York’s moratorium in length is New Mexico!

Moratorium Ends

New York has held on for as long as possible to its eviction moratorium, but now it is coming to an end. Katie Hochul, New York’s Governor commented on this saying, “We talked about giving people a little more breathing room, giving them just a little more relief on a short-term basis, and that went all the way to January 15… That was something no other state has done to my knowledge, and what we want to do is let people know that that is concluding very shortly.” While Hochul made this announcement that the moratorium will come to a close, she also made it known that New York’s rent relief portal will be reopened to provide aid to those facing eviction

What This Means

Tenant advocates now have shifted their focus from yet again extending the moratorium, to now hoping to pass the Good Cause of Eviction bill to protect those at risk of eviction. If this bill were to pass evictions would be restricted, with permissible grounds for tenant removal limited to:

  • Failure to Pay Rent
  • Violation of a substantial obligation of the tenancy
  • Committing or permitting a nuisance
  • Permitting the premise to be used for an illegal purpose  (Only under certain conditions) If the premise is to be occupied by the landlord or close relatives of the landlord as their primary residence

Under these guidelines, a rent increase would qualify as unreasonable and therefore, not a basis of eviction as long as it exceeds 3% of the previous rental amount or 1.5% of the Consumer Price Index.

Wrap Up

New York’s moratorium ending has put other options into play, with a push for the passage of the Good Cause of Eviction bill as well as the rent relief portal opening on Tuesday, January 18th, 2022. There will be a lot of moving parts regarding the eviction of tenants past due, however, note that some may still be protected under the Tenant Safe harbor Act, according to Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association.

For more info, feel free to give us a call at 516-541-6549.

 
This entry was posted in News & Articles. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.