Nearly 400 New York landlords met Tuesday to discuss lobbying in Albany to add amendments to a recently passed state housing law. 

The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 passed through the New York State Legislature on June 14, providing tenants with protections from evictions and landlord mistreatment. For activist groups, the law was considered a monumental effort to further tenants’ rights. Both unlawful evictions and tenant blacklists were made illegal under the law.

Though activists saw the legislation as a step forward, the New York Capital Region Apartment Association knew prior to the law’s passage that it would alter how the real estate industry functioned, said Jaime Cain, an attorney for the Rochester law firm Boylan Code and a board member of the association.

“It was evident in April when we heard the rumblings of this that from a legal standpoint, there would need to be clear changes to leases, to the operational process of eviction, to the application process,” Cain said. 

The meeting took place at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona. Cain, who was a keynote speaker at the event, believed the final head count of attendees totaled 390.

The group plans to lay out four to five action items to propose to legislators, Cain said. The items would be proposed from the protective stances of both landlords and tenants, she said. 

“We don’t want to go into Albany making demands, we want to go into Albany making change,” Cain said. 

Cain said the gathering’s message was that the group needs to hold “unscrupulous” landlords accountable, work with tenant associations and recognize that some landlords are unaware of the law’s passage. The landlord group is “100% sympathetic to the tenant’s cause,” she said.

“We are not coming at this as a bunch of landlords making demands. Our goal is to affect change on behalf of both tenants and landlords, recognizing that landlords need to be able to run their businesses a certain way, and tenants need to be able to gain housing,” she said. 

Under the law, tenants facing eviction now have two weeks before they can be forced to vacate the property and can request a two-week adjournment at eviction court. If a tenant is evicted for breaking the terms of their lease, the court must also delay the eviction by 30 days to allow the tenant the opportunity to resolve the problems. 

 

Prior to the law’s passage, a landlord could begin an eviction proceeding and have the warrant served within the same month the action was brought in, Cain said. This process has been extended under the law, with it now being about three months before a landlord can have their property back, she added.

“That’s the frustration of landlords,” Cain said. “They’re frustrated and they’re concerned that they’re not going to be able to make money or prosper, or themselves have the ability to live when there’s no money coming in for that many months.”

About a month before the legislation’s passage, Cain and Judd Feinman, the former president of NYCRAA, contacted the Jackson Lewis law firm to be advised on the process of lobbying to prevent the bill’s passage, Cain said. The association spent $10,000 on Jackson Lewis lobbyists in June, according to the Albany Business Review.

Though the law was passed, the association is continuing to work with Jackson Lewis to lobby to add amendments to the legislation, Cain said. ‘

It is unclear whether several university neighborhood housing providers attended the meeting. Syracuse Quality Living did not provide comment in time for publication. O.P.R. Developers denied a request for comment. The owners of University Hill Apartments and Campus Hill Apartments were not made available for an interview. 

Ben Tupper, owner of Rent From Ben, a housing company that rents to Syracuse University and SUNY-ESF students, said prior to the meeting that one of his employees would be attending the event with his son. 

A problem in New York state is that housing problems in upstate New York and New York City differ from each other. Tupper said when the state legislature passes laws, his fear is that they’re focused on problems in New York City, and upstate is “dragged along into them.” 

“I’m all for an organization that represents and is pushing for different rules, or rules that represent the needs of upstate tenants and landlords,” he said.

Most of the law’s provisions have never impacted Tupper because of the way he runs his business, Tupper said. Rent From Ben has provided housing to more than 13,000 tenants in the last two decades — not one has been taken to court or evicted, he said.

Tupper disagrees with one provision of the new legislation: limiting late fees to $50 a month. The late fee is 5% of one’s monthly rent if the fee would be less than $50. Tupper said he has tenants that are two or three months late on their rent, and sometimes the only measure that induces payment is informing tenants of daily late fees. 

New York Secretary of State Rossana Rosado announced Friday that the New York Department of State’s Division of Licensing Services issued guidance to those in the real estate industry about the law, according to a press release. The guidance explains how to properly apply several of the legislation’s provisions.

“The Guidance will help the real estate industry and other interested parties understand the new law and apply it correctly for the benefit of current and prospective tenants,” Rosado said.

Published on September 15, 2019 at 10:05 pm

Contact Emma: esfolts@syr.edu