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As recent as last Monday, November 15, Poughkeepsie became the most recent municipality to adopt “Good Cause” legislation. Other municipalities, such as Albany and Hudson, passed similar legislation months earlier. Although NY state law currently prohibits NYC from passing this type of legislat...

            New York's new eviction moratorium seems to be finally coming to an end after almost 20 months. Up until a few months ago, New Yorkers facing eviction could block their case from moving forward by filling out a form stating they lost income due to the pandemic and were unable to pay r...

Happy Tuesday! Let's talk a little about Connecticut today. In an article published by the CT mirror, Connecticut is now going to audit how every town used their federal CARES Act funding. 169 towns and cities spent roughly $60 million in federal relief funding. This money was meant to help loca...

Happy Monday!On Sunday November 21, 2021 the LRAP portal officially closed. I hope everyone applied while they had the chance. The good news for tenants is that they now have the right to at least some legal assistance and lower-income renters may be eligible for full representation. All this was...

Monday we talked about how the ERAP portal has shut down, now let's talk about what this means for tenants and housing courts. CHIP believes that even if some funding is reallocated, it will only be half of the amount that was requested. OTDA says that this shut down will give them the ability to...

    Let's start off with the latest news on ERAP. New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday that the Emergency Rental Assistance Program would shut down Sunday, November 14 at 10 PM. Due to all the money already being distributed. A formal request by the New York Congressional De...

  Governor Kathy Hochul has signed a bill that will extend the deadline for local governments to declare a housing “emergency” so as to extend rent control, until July 1, 2022. What this means in New York City, is that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development will have more t...

New York City has a new mayor. Congratulations Eric Adams. Let's talk about what this means for property owners and renters. In his proposal he mentioned that he is going to work towards adding affordable housing for everyone even in wealthier areas. Repurposing city and private office buildings ...

Governor Kathy Hochul announced that she has requested more Emergency Rental Assistance Program funds. More than 250,000 applications have been submitted but as many as 100,000 of those applications will not be getting funds unless the state can get more funding for the program.Let's talk about t...

The latest on ERAP and LRAP:The issue is still the same, the program is out of funds and according to a survey done by CHIP about 200,000 renters have not applied for the program. Although some might not be eligible for ERAP, CHIP still urges renters to apply. As for LRAP the state has also under...

  On this rainy Tuesday we have come to report that Governor Kathy Hochul recently signed a bill declaring that a rent stabilized lease is a public benefit that is exempt from the reach of bankruptcy court proceedings. This decision was handed down in the Santiago v. Monteverde case wh...

  Let's talk more about ERAP. According to CHIP's latest survey only 44% of renters with arrears applied for the program. CHIP estimates that the program will need at least $2 billion more in funds. Although the question still is how to get this fund, CHIP is working hard to figure it ...

CHIP has notified us that OTDA will announce later this week that all of the ERAP funds and LRAP funds have been distributed and although they will keep accepting applications they have no solution to this dilemma. Newsday posted an article stating that about 27,000 Long Islanders are behind on r...

LRAP has had major success, although many believed that this program was going to bring a lot of frustration just like ERAP, the process has been going smoothly for landlords. For those of you who don't know what LRAP is, it is a landlord Rental Assistance Program. Landlords can now file the appl...

  According to CHIP many are considering passing the Good Cause Eviction, which is basically universal rent control. CHIP believes that the reason for this is to pressure the State Legislature to pass S3082/A5573 which is a statewide Good Cause Eviction bill that would cap residential ...

  Governor Kathy Hochul talked about her first 45 days in office. Her main priorities for these first 45 days were to combat COVID-19, getting aid to New Yorkers and changing the culture in Albany. In the fight to combat COVID-19 she released a nationwide health care vaccine mandate for wo...

The new Landlord Rent Assistance Program (LRAP) was launched yesterday. The program has a fund of $125 million. This will go towards property owners where tenants vacated the apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic and is still owing rent. Landlords can also apply in place of tenants who refuse to...

According to an update sent out by CHIP yesterday, The Real Deal published an article talking about New York City's rent-stabilized housing market. They focused on how most of these buildings are declining in value and therefore were bad investments. They also speculated as to why investors are...

Reason Magazine has come out with a detailed story about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention became America's landlord, and did a bad job. What was supposed to be something temporary became more and more permanent over time. The eviction moratorium was a way for tenants not to get ...

CHIP and some other real estate industry groups had a meeting with OTDA. In the meeting CHIP discovered that OTDA has not sent out any 180- day notices to property owners who have yet to accept or complete the CERAP application. This is the opposite of what we heard a few weeks ago, landlords wou...

According to a recent post by The Washington Post, experts are conflicted as to why evictions did not happen once the moratorium was struck down. CHIP argues that evictions did not happen simply because it is not in the landlords best interest to actually evict tenants. In addition to that, court...

  According to CHIP the fight is still on to get more funds approved for the COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Program. Although a lot of people are advocating and asking for help there has been no update or response as to if the program will receive more funding. CHIP is still suggesting landlord...

Happy Friday Yesterday CHIP released another update. CHIP mentioned that OTDA will be taking back CERAP funds if the recipient owners cannot be contacted in six months. CHIP argues that this is an extreme action given the fact that OTDA does not do enough to actually reach out to the property ...

  According to CHIPs recent update, the OTDA released a “Notice of Overpayment” they are urging owners not to deposit checks and to return them back to OTDA. If you have deposited it or received direct deposit you are to write a check and send it back. CHIP is trying to learn more about th...

As ERAP funds are starting to flow, it is important to consider what that means for cases with pre-pandemic arrears which ERAP doesn't cover. The court has decided to draw a line in the sand and prioritize cases filed after September 1, 2021. Holdovers and non-payment cases that are filed and ans...