Rent laws

'It should be relatively easy to pursue.'

New guidance will pass the cost of brokers fees onto landlords — but REBNY is already vowing to sue.

There were nearly 3,000 fewer Department of Housing Preservation and Development violations between 2018 and 2019—a drop of 1 percent—according to the Legal Aid Society.

Since the new rent laws passed on June 15th, many renters said they were being asked to pay application fees upwards of hundreds of dollars.

The statement comes shortly after Mayor de Blasio said city officials were planning to have "some serious conversations" with Blackstone over an agreement it signed four years ago with the city to keep roughly half of the apartments at the sprawling complex affordable.

The city’s housing preservation and development agency last week said it was 'conducting a thorough review' of a 2015 deal that provided Stuy Town's owner with $220 million in subsidies in exchange for keeping 5,000 of the roughly 11,200 units affordable.

An attorney for REBNY argued that the new law which limits application fees to no more than $20 contained "an area of debate."

'Landlords will try to still harass tenants because it's in their interest to make a profit.'

"I don't think we anticipated that landlords would blatantly violate the law as quickly as they seem to have done," said Ellen Davidson, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society.

The passage of new rent laws casts the 2015 Stuy Town deal in a different light: The 5,000 affordable units that de Blasio spent $220 million to preserve would now remain rent-regulated regardless.

In what was an expected challenge to the new rent laws, two landlord groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court which argues that the regulations are unconstitutional because they infringe on their property rights.

'Repairs, something landlords always have to do, are part of the warranty of habitability. You have to provide good working appliances, fix windows, and have to provide clean living conditions.'