On Wednesday September 1, Governor Hochul convened a special session of the New York State legislature who then voted to extend the eviction moratorium until January 15th, 2022 and implement certain changes to the moratorium to address two recent Supreme Court decisions that blocked portions of the State’s moratorium and the larger Federal moratorium.
The new moratorium will potentially protect hundreds of thousands of tenants from eviction, while granting landlords broader power to challenge tenants who they doubt are suffering hardship. Specifically, landlords now have a right to request a hearing in housing court to contest any tenant’s claim of hardship that protected them from eviction. Under the original moratorium, tenants were allowed to submit a hardship declaration self-attesting that they had lost income or had increased costs during the COVID-19 pandemic, or would suffer significant health risks if forced to move due to underlying health conditions, age or disability and landlords were not afforded the opportunity to challenge or ask for evidence of the tenant’s alleged hardship.
The moratorium was originally set to expire on August 31 and it is expected that Governor Hochul will sign the law today. However, the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents some 25,000 landlords in the city, has already announced it’s plans to challenge the new eviction ban in court.
