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Tenants facing eviction proceedings in New York City Housing Court will have free universal access to legal services under a new $93 million city allocation recently announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
The funding will make New York City the biggest city in the country to offer universal access including free legal advice to all tenants in Housing Court and full legal representation for low-income tenants. The city est...
A building owner failed to convince a Manhattan judge to remove the city’s list of “100 Worst Landlords” from the NYC.gov website. The list has the owner at No. 34.
The owner, who had accumulated 565 violations at seven buildings, argued that he shouldn’t be on the list because his two structures with the most infractions are vacant. The judge said a violation in a vacant building doesn’t make it less of a violation, citing the still-...
The Independent Budget Office of the City of New York (IBO) recently issued a report that found the 421-a program was especially inefficient compared to the average tax break. It found the 421a program to be the city’s largest tax expenditure at $1.4 billion this fiscal year due to benefits that were approved and locked in prior to the program’s suspension. The now lapsed 421-a program was designed to lower developers' costs to help make more new apartme...
In April 2016, the New York State Court of Appeals found that a landlord has no duty to remove lead paint from apartments where children 6 years or younger may spend time but don’t live. The court found that a child spending in excess of 50 hours a week in an apartment didn’t trigger the landlord’s duty [Yaniveth R. v. LTD Realty Co., April 2016]. In the case, the 6 year old lived with her parents, but stayed with her paternal grandmother in the grandm...
The DHCR has published updated Forms HRVD-N (Notice of Apartment Deregulation Pursuant to High Rent Vacancy) and RA-93 CF (Income Certification Form) to reflect the 2017 Deregulation Rent Thresholds.
A three-month amnesty program run by the DOF cleared more than $150 million in penalties owed by New Yorkers due to fines from various city agencies. Proposed by City Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland and agreed to by the City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio, the September-to-December fine forgiveness program was aimed at addressing some of $1 billion in debt owed to the city and is being heralded as a success by officials involved.
New York City and State regulators are increasing efforts to enforce wage rules for service workers at luxury apartment buildings whose owners receive 421-a tax breaks. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the city comptroller, and the New York Attorney General’s Office have sent out joint letters to these owners asking for certified statements and evidence that they had paid their workers the legally required wages or an explanati...
As of Jan. 1, every building in the city that has a single-occupant bathroom that’s publicly accessible is required to remove gender-specific signage from single occupant bathrooms and indicate they may be used by all sexes. Larger, multiple stall single-sex bathrooms are not be affected by the new law.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, and Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recently announced that HPD has issued letters notifying owners of 178 residential buildings–with a total of 1,400 rental apartments–that their 421-a tax benefits will be revoked retroactively if they don’t comply with the requirements of the 421-a program, including registering their apartments as rent regulated.
Mayor de Blasio recently announced the launch of the NYC Building Operator Training Program to help residential buildings cut energy costs up to 20 percent. The new program offers a no-cost, 30-hour training program for small, multifamily building maintenance staff on ways to reduce energy consumption. Participants will learn about energy and resource conservation techniques related to a building’s heating, electrical, and water systems. This training model is des...
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