US Landlords file Suit to oppose Covid related moratorium against Eviction of Tenants

New York’s largest landlord group is looking to block the state’s ongoing freeze on evictions for tenants facing pandemic hardships.

The Rent Stabilization Association filed a motion Thursday with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, following through on its threat to New York lawmakers to challenge the recently extended eviction moratorium.

The group said the moratorium, which runs through at least Jan. 15, 2022, made only “superficial changes” to the previous law as it crumbled under the weight of a critical US Supreme Court ruling.

“No matter the spin by state lawmakers and Gov. Hochul, this is a reimplementation of the previous law – completely disregarding last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision and ignoring key elements of our complaint,” association President Joseph Strasburg said in a statement.

Strasburg called the eviction freeze a “calculated maneuver to avoid judicial review,” categorizing the initial moratorium as a “scheme that violates due process and property ownership rights of landlords.”

Tenant protections were put in place at the dawn of the COVID-19 crisis in the Empire State, an early epicenter of the pandemic in the US.

Rent Stabilization Association President Joseph Strasburg called the state’s moratorium a “calculated maneuver to avoid judicial review.”

But the New York moratorium was dealt a major blow in a 6-3 SCOTUS ruling on Aug. 12, which took issue with a portion of the law that allowed tenants to declare hardship from income loss or say moving would harm their health.

“This scheme violated the Court’s longstanding teaching that ordinarily ‘no man can be a judge in his own case,’” the court opinion stated.

As extension negotiations picked up, lawmakers aimed to address some of the issues raised in the ruling.

The state Legislature approved the extension on Sept. 1, after Hochul ordered a special session to tackle business left unfinished when ex- Gov. Andrew Cuomo vacated his seat amid a sexual harassment scandal.

The new law added a “due process” mechanism that allows landlords to challenge tenants’ claims in court – in response to property owners’ complaints that had no legal recourse under the previous freeze.

In its motion on Thursday, the association said the extension didn’t rectify the due process problem in the initial law. In the extension, a landlord can contest a tenant’s hardship by signing a sworn affidavit to say a tenant’s hardship doesn’t exist.

“The State has now cruelly continued to impose the exact same irreparable harm,” the motion states. “This Court should not stand for it.”  

Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for the state courts, declined comment on the motion because of the pending litigation.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the LatestLaws staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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