The City Council recently passed legislation requiring residential property owners to file the bedbug history for each of their properties electronically with HPD. It was signed into law on May 10 by Mayor de Blasio. In addition to filing this new electronic form with HPD, owners and managers...
At the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) Preliminary Vote on April 25, the board recommended increases for rent-stabilized apartments. Five of the board's nine members voted to recommend a 1 to 3 percent increase on one-year leases, and a 2 to 4 percent increase on two-year leases. This vote comes...
The city recently filed a $1.2 million lawsuit against an owner for using Airbnb to advertise sublets of a dozen apartments in three buildings on the Lower East Side for fewer than 30 days. This lawsuit represents the biggest crackdown thus far on an owner illegally using Airbnb. It’s...
Vacancy rate estimates capture only the number of units empty at a specific point in time and not what became available over the course of a year. To address this question, the New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) examined tenant information for over 925,000 apartments that were rent...
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently unveiled new legislation aimed at holding unscrupulous landlords criminally accountable for tenant harassment. Current state law demands prosecutors reach a high bar in order to criminally charge landlords with harassment of rent-regulated tenants....
In Matter of Prometheus Realty Corp. v. New York City Water Board, the Appellate Division, First Department of the State Supreme Court ruled 3 - 1 that the city’s water board lacked a rational basis to award the credit to owners of one- to three-family homes, while leaving other...
In a recent speech during the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York Winter Conference, Governor Cuomo vowed to veto any 421-a legislation that doesn’t include protections for union labor. The governor said that the exclusion of a prevailing wage provision is “...
The city council recently enacted a bill that would require street numbers to be placed on every side of a building that contains an entrance primarily used for day-to-day pedestrian ingress or egress. The bill is currently awaiting the mayor’s signature before becoming law.
The Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings’ Environmental Control Board (OATH ECB) is proposing to repeal its buildings penalty schedule, which consists of Buildings Penalty Schedule I and Buildings Penalty Schedule II. This schedule is found in 48 RCNY § 3-103, and contains...
The City Council recently passed a package of bills intended to make it harder for the police to evict tenants committing nuisances such as drug dealing. The mayor is expected to sign the package.
The NYC Commission on Human Rights recently announced five complaints filed against large owners and brokerage firms for repeatedly refusing to accept housing vouchers. The complaints allege discrimination against prospective tenants based on their lawful source of income, a violation of the NYC...
The New York City Council is expected to introduce a package of bills aimed at addressing the increasing number of accidents and fatalities in the construction industry. The city recorded 24 construction deaths over a two-year period—11 each year for workers and two passersby. The city...
