New Law To Protect New York Tenants From Shady Landlords

A lot of bills and laws are being presented and signed this week in NY! These new laws show a huge power shift and it’s not in favor of landlords. For years tenants have complained and been asking for more rights when it comes to renting in New York state. Things have been changing since this past June and tenants are filing seeing victory and being heard.

This new law that was signed yesterday, protects rent-regulated tenants from being harassed by their landlord. The law makes it a crime for a landlord to create unsafe conditions to force a tenant out of their home. For example, you live in an apartment that goes by your income. It’s rent-regulated meaning the landlord can’t charge you list price for the apartment based on your income, so what they’ll do out of resentment is make the home an unsafe place to live to force you to move. It’s a form of harassment, but before the previous law only protected tenants who could prove physical injury due to a landlord’s action and that the landlord intended to cause that injury. Now if your landlord wants to shut off the heat, create an unsafe construction environment, turn off the water, lights or anything that is hazardous – THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW.

A lot of Landlords aren’t happy with these new laws, as they feel they are in the business of making money and will be taken advantage of by tenants. Well if you switch sides, tenants feel the same way. It should not cost an arm and a leg to rent an apartment in upstate NY or anywhere in NY state. And to the landlords who want to try and harass these tenants to get out of their property just so they can charge higher rents, shame on you!