Cuomo Signs Sweeping Reforms To NY Rent Laws

NEW YORK — Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed sweeping changes to New York's rent regulations into law on Friday, just a day before the current rules were set to expire. The bill marks a major tenant-friendly overhaul of the state's rent laws, which cover nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City.

The state Legislature passed the measure Friday afternoon, just three days after leading lawmakers announced a deal on the changes. Cuomo, a Democrat, said he signed it immediately to avoid the "chaos and uncertainty" that a lapse in the protections would have caused.

"I'm confident the measure passed today is the strongest possible set of reforms that the Legislature was able to pass and are a major step forward for tenants across New York," Cuomo said in a statement.

The changes will curtail landlords' ability to impose large rent hikes, strengthen protections against evictions and allow new municipalities to opt in to the laws, which had previously covered tenants in New York City and Nassau, Westchester and Rockland counties.

Among the biggest changes are an end to vacancy decontrol, a provision that removed apartments from the regulation system when a tenant moved out and the rent crossed a certain threshold. The new law will also do away with the vacancy bonus, which allowed landlords to hike rents as much as 20 percent when an apartment became vacant.

And property owners will no longer be able to permanently increase rents because of building or apartment renovations, thanks to reforms of the laws governing major capital improvements and individual apartment improvements.

The new laws will also be made permanent, meaning there won't be another dance around renewing them in a few years.

Landlord groups worry that the changes will lead to disinvestment in the city's housing stock, likely causing rent-regulated apartments to crumble.

But tenant advocates celebrated the bill's signing as a victory in their monthslong campaign to remake the rent laws despite the real estate industry's previous power in Albany. Video posted to Twitter showed activists cheering in the state capitol after Cuomo signed the bill.

"For too long, unscrupulous landlords have exploited, displaced, and harassed tenants through legal loopholes that allowed them to turn a profit by driving tenants and their families out of safe and affordable housing," Raun Rasmussen, the executive director of Legal Services NYC, said in a statement. "Today’s historic reforms remove incentives to displace tenants and will go a long way to reduce evictions, strengthen New York City communities, and provide tenants with the protections and stability they deserve."