Relates to housing courts

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Luis R. Sepúlveda says this is needed

As it is well known, New York is currently facing an extreme housing crisis and New Yorkers continue to struggle with the current state of housing; this is exacerbated by the long delays in our housing court system that New York residents face as both tenants and small landlords. Small landlords, as defined by the Real Property Law, have invested, with great risk, their life savings to purchase a building with fewer units and they do not have the benefit of a large, diversified portfolio to be able to weather the delays in the housing court system and await the resolution of cases that involve situations of rightful eviction. At the same time, tenants who live in the building with their landlords can face daily harassment and threats of unstable housing: harassment that can be active and direct, along with complete negligence that makes for uninhabitable homes. Both types of scenarios are untenable situations for both, or either, parties that cannot endure the delays that take often over a year to resolve. This legislation aims to complement current housing court statutes and provide a clearer path for common sense housing-related adjudication. Reorganizing the cases that are heard for resolution, by shifting forward the cases in which both the landlord and tenants are natural persons who live in these unsustainable situations, will help streamline and clear out part the logjam that exists and allow for other cases to then be heard.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.