Relates to unauthorized rental car use

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic2
• Republican1

This bill has cosponsors from more than one party.

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Leroy Comrie says this is needed

Under current law, for a rental vehicle company to recover a rental vehicle, it must demonstrate that the renter intentionally withheld the vehicle for a period that constitutes a "gross deviation from the rental agreement." The statute defines "gross deviation from the rental agree- ment" as circumstances where the renter is authorized to rent a vehicle for fifteen days or less, but then keeps the vehicle for at least anoth- er week beyond the return date specified in the rental agreement. Once the renter has kept possession of the vehicle a week past its agreed upon return date, the rental company must notify the renter in writing by delivering a notice in person or using certified mail that the renter return the vehicle and is subject to criminal penalties upon failure to comply. Only after the renter keeps the vehicle additional two days after this notification may the rental vehicle company seek assistance from law enforcement in recovering the vehicle. On June 28, 2025, a customer walked into a rental company location in Brooklyn and entered into a written rental agreement for a one-day rental. She did not return the car in one day, or two, or three and did not respond to numerous inquiries from the rental car company. In compliance with the current unauthorized use statute requiring a vehicle be withheld for not less than seven days beyond its return date, a writ- ten letter was delivered to the renters address on July 8th. In compli- ance with the statute, another 48-hours passed after which the rental car company could finally seek assistance from law enforcement to recover the vehicle.òOn July 19th, a full 20 days after the vehicle was to be returned, with the renter at the wheel, it sped off the Manhattan Bridge near Chinatown in excess of 70 mph killing a man on a bicycle and a woman waiting at a bus stop. The driver and her passenger attempted to flee on foot but were apprehended. Drugs and alcohol were found inside the vehicle. Today, twenty-six years into the twenty-first century, rental vehicle companies have numerous tools to quickly recognize fraudulent rentals and to track down their vehicles once they are being operated outside the terms of the rental contract. However, under existing law requires that, even when possession is maintained past 24 hours of a one-day rental, the rental vehicle company must wait an additional seven days and then must serve a written demand for return and wait an additional 48 hours before notifying law enforcement. And even then, "unauthorized use of a motor vehicle" tends to be an extremely low priority for law enforcement which tend to view these matters not as criminal violations, but as a breach of contract.' The purpose of this bill is to provide the legal framework within the General Business Law for rental vehicle companies to address non-permis- sive retention and rental by fraudulent' means initially as contractual matter with timeframes set to reflect the fact that communication between contractual parties today is significantly different than it was when the unauthorized use statute was updated almost fifty years ago as the primary method for recovering these vehicles. The problem is not insignificant. While most rental vehicle companies have systems in place, such as the use of driver's license scanning software and chip readers, increasingly sophisticated use of fraudulent means enable a handful of disreputable renters to slip through the cracks. Within the past year, one rental vehicle company alone reported forty-one fraudulent rentals, amounting to over $300,000 worth of vehi- cle damages or unrecovered vehicle losses. At the end of the day, with rare exceptions for the most egregious cases, rental vehicle company's priority is not to engage police or saddle renters with criminal records rather it is to regain possession of its property. This bill strikes the proper balance by shrinking time-frames, engaging modern communication techniques and focusing on the re

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.