BILL NUMBER: S8612
SPONSOR: KAVANAGH
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the real property law and the real property actions and
proceedings law, in relation to enacting technical changes to the good
cause eviction law
 
PURPOSE:
This bill makes technical changes to the Good Cause Eviction Law for the
purpose of clarifying certain provisions and facilitating implementation
and compliance.
 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1 of the bill amends subdivision 7 of section 211 of the Real
Property Law to require the Division of Housing and Community Renewal
(DHCR) to publish the annual inflation index, which is used to assess
the reasonableness of rent increases under Good Cause Eviction, by no
later than June 1 each year and to provide that the inflation index
shall become effective on October 1 of the same year. The current law
requires DHCR to publish the inflation index by August 1, and does not
specify an effective date.
Section 1 of the bill also adds a new subdivision 9 to define "consum-
mated," a term used in subdivision 7 of Section 214 of the Real Property
Law as amended by section 2 of the bill, summarized below.
Section 2 of the bill amends subdivision 5 of Section 214 of the Real
Property Law to clarify that in order to be exempt from protections
provided under the Good Cause Eviction Law, a housing unit that is
otherwise subject to rent increase protections under local, state, or
federal law, rule, or regulation must also be protected under such law,
rule, or regulation against non-renewal of tenancy without good cause.
Section 2 of the bill also amends subdivision 6 of Section 214 of the
Real Property Law to clarify that in order to be exempt from protections
provided under the Good Cause Eviction Law, a housing unit that is
designated as affordable to tenants at a specific income level pursuant
to a statute, regulation, restrictive declaration, or regulatory agree-
ment with a local, state, or federal government entity must also be
protected under such statute, regulation, restrictive declaration, or
regulatory agreement against non-renewal of tenancy without good cause.
Section 2 of the bill also amends subdivision 7 of Section 214 of the
Real Property Law to clarify that the exemption from protections
provided under the Good Cause Eviction Law for units in a cooperative or
condominium applies when an offering plan has been submitted to the
Attorney General's Office to convert the building into a cooperative or
a condominium and the offering plan has been consummated as defined
under Section 1 subdivision 9 (as added under Section 1 of the bill),
meaning that the building has begun operating as a cooperative or condo-
minium.
Section 2 of the bill also amends subdivision 8 of Section 214 of the
Real Property Law to clarify that under the 30-year exemption from
protection provided in the Good Caise Eviction Law for buildings that
were issued a temporary or permanent certificate of occupancy on or
after January 1, 2009, that the temporary or permanent certificate of
occupancy used to determine this exemption is the first one issued after
a building was built.
Section 2 of the bill also amends subdivision 15 of Section 214 of the
Real Property Law with the same amendments (described above) made by
Section 1 of the bill to subdivision 7 of Section 211 of the Real Prop-
erty Law regarding the publication and effective date of the inflation
index.
Section 3 of the bill amends subparagraph (i) of paragraph (a) of subdi-
vision 1 of Section 216 of the Real Property Law to clarify that the
provisions regarding reasonable rent increases refer to the amount the
rent goes up annually.
Section 3 of the bill also amends paragraph (j) of subdivision 1 of
Section 216 of the Real Property Law to increase the period within which
written notice of lease changes under Good Cause Eviction must be
provided to tenants from 30-90 days to 30-100 days prior to the
commencement of the renewal lease, to ensure consistency with other
notice provisions in state law.
Section 4 of the bill amends paragraph (a) of subdivision 1 of Section
226-c of the Real Property Law to provide for an exemption to the tenant
notification requirement under the Good Cause Eviction Law for proper-
ties exempt under subdivisions 5 or 6 of Section 214 of the Real Proper-
ty Law as long as the tenants in those properties are informed of their
rights in their leases. Subdivisions 5 and 6 offer exemptions to stabi-
lized, public, and other regulated housing pursuant to federal, state,
or local statutes or other forms of regulation.
Section 5 of the bill makes the following changes to the Good Cause
Eviction notification template in Section 231-c of the Real Property
Law:
-- Subparagraph F of Paragraph 2, which references the cooperative and
condominium exemption, is amended with the same change as in subdivision
7 of Section 214 of the Real Property Law under Section 3 of this bill
to indicate that an offering plan of a cooperative or condominium must
be consummated for the exemption to apply.
-- The opening paragraph of paragraph 3 adds language to indicate that
owners do not have to fill out that section of the notification if it is
for a new tenant being offered a new lease.
-- Subparagraph E of Paragraph 4 of subdivision 1 adds the commencement
of a nonpayment case as a requirement when the landlord is not renewing
the lease because rent is due and owing.
-- Subparagraph N of Paragraph 4 of subdivision 1 makes changes to
conform to provisions of Section 3 of this bill amending paragraph (j)
of subdivision 1 of Section 216 of the Real Property Law, to match the
updated allowable time period for owners to send Good Cause Eviction
notifications to tenants from 30-90 days to 30-100 days.
-- A new subdivision 2 is added to section 231-c of the Real Property
Law to provide for an exemption of the tenant notification requirement
under Good Cause Eviction for properties exempt under subdivisions 5 or
6 of Section 214 of the Real Property Law where the tenant has a lease
which provide the tenants with information about their rights under the
laws, regulations, rules, regulatory agreements or restrictive declara-
tions.
Section 6 of the bill amends subdivision 2 of section 711 of the Real
Property Actions and Proceedings Law to provide for an exemption of the
tenant notification requirement under Good Cause Eviction for properties
exempt under subdivisions 5 or 6 of Section 214 of the Real Property Law
where the tenant has a lease which provide the tenants with information
about their rights under the laws, regulations, rules, regulatory agree-
ments or restrictive declarations.
Section 7 of the bill amends subdivisions 5-a of section 741 of the Real
Property Actions and Proceedings Law to provide for an exemption of the
tenant notification requirement under Good Cause Eviction for properties
exempt under subdivisions 5 or 6 of Section 214 of the Real Property.
Law where the tenant has a lease which provide the tenants with informa-
tion about their rights under the laws, regulations, rules, regulatory
agreements or restrictive declarations.
Section 8 of the bill sets forth the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
The Fiscal Year 2024-2025 enacted New York State budget passed Good
Cause Eviction (GCE) into law. GCE extended tenant protections to
certain eligible market-rate tenants. Covered tenants may not be evicted
without good cause. GCE is mandated for New York City, while other
localities in the state may opt in.
This bill is intended to facilitate the implementation of and compliance
with GCE; the proposed changes are technical in nature. These changes
are necessary to provide clarification regarding certain provisions that
tenants and property owners have found confusing or ambiguous, to remove
unnecessary administrative burdens, and to reinforce the legislative
intent of some parts of GCE where such intent can be better conveyed
through clearer language.
DHCR's Annual Guidance and Implementation Date Under GCE, a "reasonable
rent increase" means an increase that is less than or equal to "a rent
increase equal to the inflation index or ten percent, whichever is
lower." The Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) is tasked
with publishing the inflation index for the most recent preceding calen-
dar year. In 2024, DHCR published its inflation index notice in May.
Since it was the first notice in the first year of GCE implementation,
the inflation index determinations were readily adopted by property
owners. However, the law does not currently specify an effective date
for DHCR's annual notice. To avoid confusion going forward on which
year's inflation index a landlord should use for calculating reasonable
rent increases and for notifying tenants, it is necessary to specify
when a new DHCR notice comes into effect. In addition, because property
owners are required to provide notice to tenants of certain proposed
changes in their leases well in advance, including certain rent
increases, it is important that the new inflation index be published
well before it takes effect. This bill provides for the new index to be
published by June 1 and to take effect on October 1 each year.
Exemption Clarification for Cooperatives and Condominiums GCE exempts
units owned as cooperative and condominium housing from the law. Co-op
and condo housing can be created by new construction or by converting
from rental housing. For conversions, the submission of an offering plan
to the Attorney General's Office usually indicates that a project is on
the path to begin selling units and reconstituting as a homeownership
entity. However, there are instances of stalled conversion where,
despite a building having submitted an offering plan, no sale has
occurred and the units within the building remain rental housing. It was
never the intent of the GCE law to exclude rental housing under this
circumstance from GCE. This bill seeks to clarify this by adding a
definition of when a co-op or condo conversion is consummated and
requires a submitted offering plan to be consummated in order for units
in a converted building to be exempt from GCE.
Exemption for Regulated Housing The GCE Law exempts housing units
covered by rent stabilization, public housing, and certain other units
that are otherwise under federal, state, or local regulations because
good cause eviction protections already apply to these types of housing
under other laws or regulations. This bill clarifies that the exemption
the GCE Law applies specifically to housing units in which the tenants
are protected from termination or non-renewal of lease without good
cause, not more broadly to those that only have affordability
restrictions but not good cause protections.
Certificate of Occupancy for New Building Exemption Practices on the
issuance of certificates of occupancy vary across the state. In some
areas, a certificate of occupancy is issued only once. In other areas,
certificates of occupancy are regularly reissued. For example, in Alba-
ny, certificates of occupancy for buildings are issued every three
years. Since the issuance of a temporary or permanent certificate of
occupancy is used as a proxy to determine whether a building falls under
the GCE exemption for new buildings, it is necessary to clarify which
certificate of occupancy should be used to determine applicability of
the exemption. This bill identifies the certificate of occupancy issued
after a building is built as the one to be used for consideration for
the new building exemption.
Frequency of Rent Increases
This bill clarifies that the provisions regarding rent increases under
GCE are intended to apply to annual rent increases, not multiple rent
increases in a single year.
Notification Timeline
Under current GCE requirements, a landlord must provide notification of
a lease renewal informing tenants of a reasonable increase of rent
between 30 and 90 days of the expiration of the current lease. However,
under the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, for
tenants who have resided in a unit for more than two years, landlords
must provide renewal notices to tenants with 90 or more days of notice.
This makes it impossible for landlords to comply with both laws' notifi-
cation requirements, and if a landlord sends out two lease renewal
notifications to tenants in the effort to separately comply with both
laws, it may cause confusion for tenants who would receive two notices
about the same topic.
This bill increases the upper limit of the tenant notification timeline
under GCE from 90 to 100 days to allow for the compliance of both GCE
and the HSTPA with a single notice.
Notification Exemption
Currently, owners of regulated housing under Section 214 subdivisions 5
and 6 of the Real Property Law are required to send out notifications to
their tenants informing them that they are not covered under GCE. To
relieve the owners of these housing types from unnecessary administra-
tive burden, this bill exempts the tenant notification requirement for
exempt stabilized, public, and regulated housing as long as tenants are
provided with information about good cause and rent increase protections
in their leases.
Notification Form Language
The GCE law includes a notification form template for landlords to use.
This bill makes changes to the template to conform its language with the
corresponding changes that are proposed elsewhere in the law, and to
offer clarification on certain parts that have caused confusion on
compliance.
Reasons for the following conforming changes have already been discussed
above:
-- Clarify that the cooperative and condominium exemption applies to a
conversion that has been consummated.
-- Increase the GCE tenant notification time frame from 30-90 days to
30-100 days.
-- Exempt landlords of stabilized, public, and other regulated housing
from the tenant notification requirement as long as tenants are provided
with information about good cause and rent increase protections in their
leases.
The bill also makes the following clarification changes:
-- Instruction added to the start of paragraph 3 of the form directs
owners to fill out that section only when offering a rent increase.
This section of the notification asks landlords to indicate whether a
rent increase above the reasonableness threshold is being imposed.
However, a new tenant moving into a unit they have not previously
resided in would not be receiving a rent increase - they would be
offered an initial rent amount. It is thus reasonable to direct land-
lords offering initial rents to skip this section. The proposed change
also prevents inadvertently excluding tenants who currently live in a
housing unit and are receiving a lease for that unit for the first time.
For these tenants (who are not "a new tenant"), the landlord must still
fill out this section of the notification.
-- Subparagraph E of Paragraph 4 of subdivision 1 allows a landlord to
decline to renew a lease when rent is due and owing. This has created a
new holdover for nonpayment of rent. The new language allows landlords
to decline to offer a renewal lease where rent is due and owing and the
landlord has commenced a nonpayment case. Landlords are already permit-
ted to evict tenants due to nonpayment of rent. This would clarify that
while a non payment case is ongoing, landlords can decline to renew the
lease.
 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
This is a new bill that amends the Good Cause Eviction Law, which was
passed in the Fiscal Year 2024-2025 enacted budget (S8306C/A8806C, Chap-
ter 56 of 2024, Part HH).
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately; provided, however, that: (a) the
amendments to sections 211, 214, 216 and 231-c of the real property law
made by sections one, two, three and five of this act shall not affect
the repeal of such sections and shall be deemed repealed therewith; (b)
the amendments to paragraph (a) of subdivision 1 of section 226-c of the
real property law made by section four of this act shall not affect the
expiration of such paragraph and shall expire and be deemed repealed
therewith; (c) the amendments to subdivision two of section 711 of the
real property actions and proceedings law made by section six of this
act shall not affect the expiration of such subdivision pursuant to
section 7 of part HH of chapter 56 of the laws of 2024, as amended, and
shall expire therewith; and (d) the amendments to subdivision 5-a of
section 741 of the real property actions and proceedings law made by
section seven of this act shall not affect the repeal of such subdivi-
sion and shall be deemed repealed therewith.

Statutes affected:
S8612: 211 real property law, 211(7) real property law, 711 real property actions and proceedings law, 711(2) real property actions and proceedings law, 741 real property actions and proceedings law, 741(5-a) real property actions and proceedings law