New York Housing Court: Rigged to Fail

A convicted drug dealer is sitting in the Rikers Island correctional facility over Thanksgiving weekend, waiting for his sentence to end. When he gets out, he might be able to go back to an apartment in Queens, despite not being the legal tenant, who he befriended before they died of an overdose.

He is a squatter. After the tenant’s death, the property owner called the police. They confronted the squatter, and he told the police that he had been living there for 30 days. The police told the building owner there was nothing they could do. So the property owner went to court. This was in March.

The case was called several times but the squatter never appeared. Despite this, the judge refused to give the owner permission to take the apartment back. Meanwhile, other tenants in the building began to complain about alleged drug deals and strangers in and out of the building. 

In June, police raided the apartment, confiscated tens of thousands of dollars of drugs, and arrested the squatter. The property owner and tenants were relieved because they thought the ordeal was over. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

The judge continued to adjourn the case and refused to let the owner take back the apartment. Once in September. Once in November.

The reason? The judge wanted to wait until the drug dealer’s sentence was up so they could appear in court in person. 

Unacceptable Delays

This is just one example of the lengthy delays and frustrations that take place in housing courts all across the city. 

While this is an extreme example, the culture for judges in housing court has become one of delay and extend. Judges almost always automatically give a “no attribution” adjournment of at least 2 to 3 months at the first appearance. 

There are safeguards to ensure cases cannot drag on while no rent is paid, but they are only after a certain number of adjournments, and with such long adjournments given without attribution, those protections cannot be used. This also delays the start of any meaningful appearances or a trial, resulting in most cases being unresolved for more than a year from the filing date.

Even if a case ultimately results in a decision for the owner, the delays continue. The law requires that a warrant be issued between 8 and 10 days, but they are often set three to four months later.  During that time, the tenant could get a one-shot deal from the city to pay the arrears and remain in the apartment, with the cycle repeating shortly after. 

These are the official timelines that court staff have recently provided to landlord & tenant (L&T) attorneys at meetings in Queens and Manhattan. Their reports are in line with what L&T attorneys see every day. Whether an attorney is representing a property owner in a nonpayment proceeding or a tenant working to get repairs, it’s likely going to be more than nine months before it is resolved. 

Seeking Due Process

The unacceptable delays have led one property owner to file a lawsuit, Argentine Leasing v. OCA, which directly challenges the courts to speed things up. In the filing, they allege that the courts are failing to abide by Article 7 of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, which mandates a clear procedure and timeline “in order to adjudicate housing disputes efficiently and judiciously.”

In the petition, they explain that the courts have been dysfunctional for a long time: 

“While practitioners before the Housing Court may wax nostalgic about a long-gone era in which summary proceedings trended towards and not away from efficiency, they have been collectively mired in interminable and inexplicable delays in seeking the vindication of their clients’ rights to their respective property for so long that it has surreally become “normal.” Landlords have been forced to merely accept the game as rigged and trudge along the nightmarish procedure of Housing Court in the hopes that one day, far in the future, they will be able to retake and make their property economically viable once more.”

The crux of the argument is that housing court case timelines are set very clearly by statute, and housing court judges are violating those statutes by allowing cases to significantly exceed those timelines. In the petition, the plaintiffs don’t ask for money, but for the courts to operate in a timely manner. They conclude their petition as such: 

“The failings of Respondents to honor and fulfill their duties as arbiters of justice and administrators of statutory directives are not isolated but systemic and ongoing. And the harm caused thereby to Petitioners, and all similarly situated landlords is acute, repeated, and imminent.” 

Impact On Housing

There are long-standing social and policy-oriented reasons for creating “summary” proceedings for landlord-tenant disputes. But long delays in court have a negative impact on the overall health of the housing market, which ultimately hurts renters. The lost building revenue leads to deferred maintenance, and the inability to remove a problem tenant can diminish tenants’ quality of life. The difficulty of operating housing in NYC also deters housing providers from starting businesses or remaining in business. 

Recently, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a working paper, Nonpayment and Eviction in the Rental Housing Market, which looks at the factors that lead to filing a housing court case. The report states:

Our data show that nonpayment is common, is often tolerated by landlords, and is often followed by recovery, suggesting that landlords face a trade-off between initiating a costly eviction or waiting to learn whether a tenant can continue paying. 

This suggests that housing court is usually the last resort for housing providers, and evictions cannot be relied upon as a business model and are usually for chronically nonpaying tenants. 

The paper also looks at the impact of tenant protections like rent controls, eviction protections, higher filing fees/legal costs, and short-term rental assistance, suggesting that they don’t prevent evictions nearly as effectively as a long-term rent subsidy model.  

Basically, most housing providers do not want to go to court. They would rather the tenant be able to pay the rent. But when the government mandates a process that requires renters to go to court to get rental assistance, it increases the likelihood the tenant will get evicted.

Eviction Diversion 

Instead of forcing tenants into housing court to receive assistance, other municipalities and states, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New Jersey and Massachusetts, have used eviction diversion programs to help renters resolve nonpayment issues without ever stepping foot in court.  

This approach has been effective and the concept is simple. Before filing a nonpayment case, a housing provider and tenant can elect to enter into a rent arrears assistance program, in which back rent would be paid and eligible tenants would be provided with a rental payment subsidy moving forward.

The New York Apartment Association has been in discussions with elected officials for more than a year, advising them on what would be required in the program to make it work for housing providers. We are optimistic that the City Council will introduce a pilot program in 2025. 

Will Housing Courts Get Better?

The Office of Court Administration recently hired more staff for housing courts and their public comments to the news media have indicated an admission that the delays are unacceptable. Still, it seems like the backlog and lack of staff will be lingering problems.  

Property owners upset with the delays can file a writ of mandamus, which might expedite the specific case it is tied to, providing owners more timely justice. In order to make a significant impact on the court backlogs, there will need to be multiple cases filed. 

If you have questions about the expediting of cases, please contact NYAA at info@housingny.org.