N.Y. ‘good cause eviction’ Law of the Working Family & Communist Party = More Bad News for N.Y. Owners and Renters

Working Family & Communist Party, Push to CONTROL residential rent increases by statute. Government Price Controls in the Name of Social Justice Will Drive Out Capital Investment; Destroying Residential Real Estate in N.Y.

As a general rule of thumb, if the Working Family Party & the Communist Party and the Working Family Party Members support a Bill- it’s gotta be bad. This proposed marxist government interference in private party rights to set rent increases for residential landlords should be dead on arrival. Progressives want the coercive fist of the state to prohibit landlords from raising rents beyond 3%. Those who violate the mandates of the Communist State, lose the right to evict tenants for non-payment of rent.

Another example of Socialist, Progressive, Communists using the coercive power of the NY government to take private property, trample on liberty, and destroy capitalism.

2023-S305 : The purpose of this legislation is to prohibit the eviction of residential tenants or the non-renewal of residential leases without good cause.  Section 213 prohibits landlords from taking any action to evict, fail to renew a lease, or otherwise seek to remove a tenant from housing accommodation except for "good cause", as defined in section 214.

Section 214 (1) permissible grounds for the removal of tenants: a) including the failure to pay rent, b) the violation of a substantial obligation of the tenancy, c) committing or permitting a nuisance or illegal use.

A rent increase is presumed to be unreasonable and, therefore, not a basis for eviction, if it exceeds either 3% of the previous rental amount or one and one-half times the annual percentage change in the Consumer Price Index for the relevant region, whichever is higher.

A landlord cannot raise the rent greater than 3% at the end of a lease term and then evict a tenant for non-payment of rent. This is Rent Control of non-rent regulated units throughout the state.

According to them: SOCIAL JUSTICE IMPACT This bill would set a precedent of placing the lives, health, safety, and well-being of tenants first, and before the profits of landlords. With the leading cause of homelessness being eviction, this legislation would limit cases of homelessness and help to ensure that the human right to housing is given meaning in New York State.  

According to us: Landlords need capital to renovate, maintain, and carry properties. Money for major repairs, and maintenance is not free. Without money there will be no repairs to buildings and residential units making them less safe.

According to them: FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: No negative fiscal implications to the state or to localities. This bill would result in fiscal savings by significantly reducing homelessness, reducing the detrimental health impact of homelessness or housing precarity, and by reducing the caseload of the state's housing courts and all related administrative costs.

According to us: The fiscal implications to the state and to localities will be felt for decades to come. If there is no profit motive to entice new investment, capital investment will seek out better opportunities elsewhere. The result of Disinvestment in New York will take decades to reverse. Reality check: There are a limited number of hedge fund managers even in New York, and lots of them are following Citadel’s Ken Griffin to Miami, as New York has apparently made “tax the rich” its official state slogan. New York Post, Progressives ‘good cause eviction’ bill spells doom for NYC Housing. Howard Husock, 2/24/2023.

“Because of rent control and its violations of the rights of landlords and tenants, New York has suffered from a severe paucity of new rental construction. In many years in the 1970s and into the 1980s, more units were *abandoned* each year by landlords than were built. This coincided with a decline in New York City’s population of nearly 1 million people, from 8 million to 7 million. There were other causes of this decline, too, such as sky-high and novel taxes, which typically makes New Yorkers pay the highest combined city/state/federal income taxes in the country. But rent control had a particularly destructive effect on the city. It effectively “bombed” vast areas of New York into Mad Max-style wastelands.The other result of rent control has been the government’s rapid encroachment and takeover of the housing market, as the city in costly and coercive fashion tries to make up for the shortfall in private construction.” American Institute for Economic Research: The Perpetual Tragedy of New York’s Rent Control Raymond C. Niles  June 30, 2022

According to the Manhattan Institute 2/13/24 “good cause eviction” would exacerbate the deleterious effects of numerous measures that the legislature and local governments have already taken which hinder the effective operation of the market mechanism that matches the supply of housing with demand.