Senate Bill S9482

                                 
BILL NUMBER: S9482

SPONSOR: KAVANAGH
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the New York city civil court act, in relation to estab-
lishing a subpart to hear eviction matters related to affordable housing
providers and small landlords

 
PURPOSE:

This bill would establish a special part within the housing court in
each borough of New York City for eviction cases due to the nonpayment
of rent, where the tenant lives in a subsidized affordable housing unit
or in a unit owned by a small landlord.

 
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1 adds a new Subdivision (r) to Section 110 of the New York City
Civil Court Act to establish a separate subpart within the housing court
in each borough of New York City devoted to actions and proceedings
involving evictions of tenants living in affordable housing or building
              

units owned by small landlords.

Subdivision (r) also specifies that the definition of "small landlord"
shall be the same as in the Good Cause Eviction Law, and the definition
of "affordable housing" shall be any dwelling units subject to a regula-
tory agreement with a state or local housing agency.

Section 2 of the bill sets forth the effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

In 2024, there were 43,000 eviction filings in subsidized housing in New
York City, more than a third of all eviction filings. According to an
analysis by NYU Furman Center, the median arrears sought at filing is
just over $4,500, but it can take more than a year to resolve these
cases, accumulating arrears and raising the cost to the City of provid-
ing emergency rental assistance, which now averages almost $10,000 per
household.

In addition to subsidized housing, this bill would allow cases brought
by for-profit building owners who own fewer than 10 units in the state
to be adjudicated in the new subpart. There does not appear to be reli-
able data on how many such cases there might be, but the Furman Center
examined data on 2025 eviction filings from private owners and 2024
one-year American Community Survey estimates of occupied rental units by
building size, and found that there were 12,286 cases (11 percent of
total filings) where tenants lived in buildings with 1-4 units, and
4,625 (4 percent) where tenants lived in buildings with 5-9 units. The
number of cases brought by small landlords would likely be a modest
fraction of these figures.

To streamline the process of connecting tenants to emergency rental
assistance, the New York Housing Conference released the Affordable
Housing Stability Court Initiative in March 2026, a proposal to "estab-
lish a special court part to serve tenants of affordable housing with
city or state regulatory agreement or building units owned by small

landlords, preventing eviction and stabilizing tenants while quickly
resolving arrears for building owners."

Resolving non-payment eviction cases in a timely manner with emergency
rental assistance helps support both tenants and property owners.
Directing eviction cases brought by subsidized housing providers and
small landlords to a special part in housing court would make it easier
for the courts and the City to provide services, such as housing naviga-
tors and resource coordinators, that would work directly with tenants
and property owners to resolve cases by assisting with applications for
emergency assistance, plans to enable tenants to afford the rent moving
forward, etc. This would be beneficial to all parties: tenants would
secure emergency rental assistance to avoid eviction, property owners
would be able to more promptly receive rent arrears payments, and the
City might realize net savings by resolving cases with lower average
emergency payments.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

This is a new bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

To be determined.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after it
shall have become a law.