The rent guidelines, this lease year
Apartment and Loft Order Number 58 of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, adopted 25 June 2026, permits an increase of zero percent on a one year renewal lease and zero percent on a two year renewal lease, for leases commencing on or after 1 October 2026 and on or before 30 September 2027. The loft figures are the same.
For comparison, the Nassau County Rent Guidelines Board set 1.50 percent and 2.50 percent for the same period. An owner with buildings in both places is working from two different numbers.
The good cause eviction law applies here
The good cause eviction law is in effect in New York City under section 212 of the Real Property Law. Outside the city it applies only where a village, town or city has adopted it by local law, and as of the state's published list of 4 May 2026 no municipality in Nassau or Suffolk has done so.
A landlord appends to or incorporates into any initial lease, any renewal lease, a notice of rent increase or non-renewal, a fourteen day rent demand, or a petition, the form headed "Notice to tenant of applicability or inapplicability of the New York State good cause eviction law," stating whether the unit is covered and, if it is exempt, which exemption applies.
Housing Court, and how quickly a case is heard
The Housing Part of the New York City Civil Court is where a summary proceeding is brought. The fee on issuing a notice of petition in a summary proceeding to recover possession is forty-five dollars.
The speed comes from a rule. Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law section 732 applies in a court only where the Appellate Division has so provided, and the Uniform Civil Rules for the New York City Civil Court provide it: section 732 is applicable in that court in a proceeding brought on the ground that the respondent has defaulted in the payment of rent.
Where it applies, the notice of petition is returnable within ten days after service, and the clerk fixes a date for trial or hearing not less than three nor more than eight days after issue is joined. Where the respondent does not answer within ten days, judgment goes to the petitioner and the court may stay the warrant up to ten days. Where the respondent answers and the petitioner succeeds, the warrant is not stayed more than five days.
The corresponding rules for the district courts, for the city courts outside New York City and for the town and village justice courts contain no such provision. A nonpayment proceeding in Nassau or Suffolk is served ten to seventeen days before the hearing instead.
The rent deposit on adjournments
Section 745 of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law opens its second subdivision with the words "In the city of New York." On the second of two adjournments granted solely at the tenant's request, or on the sixtieth day after the parties first appear less any days attributable to the landlord's adjournments, whichever comes sooner, the court may order rent or use and occupancy deposited with the court.
An adjournment taken by an unrepresented tenant on a return date in order to find counsel does not count toward the two. For a tenant on a fixed income the deposit is limited to thirty percent of the monthly payments.
This machinery exists nowhere else in the state.
An unregistered building cannot collect
In a city of over one million that requires owners of multiple dwellings to register, the Multiple Dwelling Law provides that no rent shall be recovered by the owner of a multiple dwelling who fails to comply with the registration requirements, until the owner complies. A tenant who pays rent voluntarily during that period has no claim to recover it back.
Stays
A tenant of premises occupied for dwelling purposes may apply to stay the warrant for up to one year, where the application is made in good faith and the tenant cannot find comparable premises in the neighborhood after due efforts, or where extreme hardship would result. The court weighs the landlord's hardship as well. The stay continues only on deposit of the rent payable for the month before the tenancy expired, plus any difference the court sets.
Where the proceeding rests on a breach of a lease provision, the court grants a thirty day stay of the warrant for the tenant to correct the breach.
What applies everywhere in New York
A nonpayment proceeding begins with a written rent demand giving at least fourteen days, requiring in the alternative payment of the rent or possession.
Before raising a rent by five percent or more, or declining to renew, a landlord gives thirty, sixty or ninety days' written notice according to the length of the tenancy or the lease.
A security deposit may not exceed one month's rent, outside units under the city rent and rehabilitation law or the emergency housing rent control law. An itemized statement and the balance are due within fourteen days of the tenant vacating.
Every lease of residential premises carries a warranty that they are fit for human habitation, and a waiver of it is void as contrary to public policy.
Before a warrant is executed, at least fourteen days' written notice is given and the warrant is executed on a business day between sunrise and sunset.