Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019: Key Changes

New York’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 permanently rewrote the rules for rent-regulated housing, closed the routes landlords had used to pull apartments out of stabilization, and added tenant protections that apply across the state. Governor Cuomo signed the law on June 14, 2019. Its rent regulation provisions concentrate in New York City, but any municipality with a rental vacancy rate below five percent can opt into the Emergency Tenant Protection Act, and several protections, including the caps on deposits and fees, apply statewide regardless of stabilization status.¹

Rent Stabilization Is Now Permanent

The biggest structural change is that apartments no longer leave stabilization. Two routes used to exist. High-rent vacancy deregulation let a unit exit stabilization when it became vacant and its legal rent crossed the deregulation threshold, most recently around $2,775 per month. High-income deregulation let landlords petition to deregulate a unit whose tenant earned more than $200,000 and whose legal rent exceeded that threshold. Both are gone.²

The statutory twenty percent vacancy bonus, which had automatically raised a unit’s legal rent whenever a tenant moved out, was also eliminated. Local Rent Guidelines Boards can no longer add their own vacancy increases on top.³

Once a unit is stabilized, it stays stabilized regardless of how high the legal rent climbs or how wealthy the tenant becomes. Annual increases come only from the local Rent Guidelines Board, plus the improvement surcharges described below. The regulatory framework itself is also permanent now, ending the periodic expirations that had repeatedly put tenant protections on the negotiating table.¹

How Rent Can Still Go Up

Major Capital Improvements

MCIs are building-wide upgrades such as new boilers, roofs, or plumbing. Landlords used to pass the cost to tenants as a permanent surcharge of up to six percent per year. The 2019 law made three changes. The annual surcharge is now capped at two percent of the tenant’s rent at the time the increase is approved. The surcharge must be removed thirty years after the effective date rather than compounding into the base rent forever.⁴ And the amortization period was stretched to twelve years (144 months) for buildings with thirty-five or fewer units and twelve and a half years (150 months) for larger buildings.⁵

Individual Apartment Improvements

IAIs are upgrades to a specific unit, such as new cabinets or flooring. Under the HSTPA, a landlord can perform no more than three IAIs over any fifteen-year period, and the combined cost of those improvements cannot exceed $15,000. The monthly increase collected from them is spread over fourteen years (168 months) in buildings with thirty-five or fewer units and fifteen years (180 months) in larger buildings, which works out to roughly $89 and $83 per month respectively at the cap.⁵ The increase must also be removed after thirty years, and a landlord cannot claim an IAI increase on any apartment with outstanding hazardous violations.

Preferential Rents Are Locked In

A preferential rent is a discount off the legal regulated rent. Before 2019, landlords could revoke that discount at any renewal, so a tenant paying $1,400 on a unit with a $2,200 legal rent could face an $800 increase overnight. For any preferential rent in effect on or after June 14, 2019, the rent the tenant actually pays becomes the base for every future Rent Guidelines Board increase during that tenancy. The landlord can only reset to the full legal rent after the tenant permanently vacates.⁶

Longer Window to Challenge Overcharges

The statute of limitations for filing a rent overcharge complaint is now six years, and the period for recovering treble damages on willful overcharges was extended to six years as well. DHCR and the courts can examine all rent history “reasonably necessary” to determine the correct legal rent rather than being capped at a four-year lookback.⁵ Landlords must keep rent records for at least six years, and MCI and IAI records indefinitely. If a landlord cannot produce records, DHCR can look back without any time limit at all, which often decides these cases: an increase the landlord cannot document can be stripped from the legal rent.⁷

Deposit, Application, and Late Fee Caps (Statewide)

These caps apply broadly to residential tenancies across New York, not just rent-stabilized units.

Security deposits cannot exceed one month’s rent. After a tenant moves out, the landlord has fourteen days to return the full deposit or send an itemized statement of any deductions. Missing that deadline forfeits the right to keep any portion of the deposit, regardless of the apartment’s condition.⁸

Application fees are capped at twenty dollars or the actual cost of a background and credit check, whichever is less. If the applicant supplies a background or credit check conducted within the previous thirty days, the landlord must waive the fee. The landlord must also give the applicant a copy of any report obtained.⁹

Late fees cannot be charged unless the rent is more than five days overdue, and the fee cannot exceed fifty dollars or five percent of the monthly rent, whichever is less.⁹

Eviction and Notice Rules

For any residential tenant in New York, a landlord must give written notice before raising the rent by more than five percent or declining to renew a lease. The required notice scales with how long the tenant has been in the unit:¹⁰

Less than one year: 30 days’ notice.
One to two years: 60 days’ notice.
More than two years: 90 days’ notice.

In non-payment cases, the old three-day pay-or-quit notice is now a fourteen-day written rent demand, and the landlord cannot file in court until those fourteen days have passed. Once a case is filed, tenants get at least ten days between service and the court date. If the court finds a lease violation, the tenant has thirty days to cure it before eviction can proceed.¹¹

Even after a landlord wins a judgment, a tenant who pays the full amount owed before the marshal or sheriff executes the warrant can have it canceled by the court.¹² Judges can also stay an eviction for up to one year if the tenant shows that suitable replacement housing is unavailable in the neighborhood or that eviction would cause extreme hardship because of health, family, or similar circumstances. The tenant must show a good-faith effort to find alternative housing during the stay.¹³

Owner-Use Evictions Are Narrower

A landlord can now recover only one rent-regulated unit in a building for personal use or the use of immediate family members, ending the practice of clearing multiple apartments under this provision.⁵ The owner-use route cannot be used at all against a household where any member is sixty-two or older, has lived in the building for fifteen years or more, or has a disability that prevents substantial employment.

Retaliation Protections

A landlord cannot refuse to renew a lease, substantially alter the terms of a tenancy, or impose an unreasonable rent increase in response to a tenant filing a health or safety complaint, exercising rights under a lease, or participating in a tenant organization.¹⁴ If the landlord serves a notice to quit or brings an eviction case within a specified period after such protected activity, the court applies a rebuttable presumption of retaliation. The landlord then has to prove a legitimate reason for the action. Tenants who prevail can recover damages, attorney’s fees, and injunctive relief.

1
New York State Assembly. Assembly Passes Historic Affordable Housing Protections to Bring Stability to Tenants Across New York State
2
Rent Guidelines Board. Deregulation FAQs
3
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 5 – Vacancy Leases in Rent Stabilized Apartments
4
Homes and Community Renewal. Apartment (IAI) and Building (MCI) Improvements
5
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 Overview
6
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 40 – Preferential Rents
7
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Strengthening New York State Rent Regulations – HSTPA Presentation
8
New York State Senate. New York General Obligations Law 7-108 – Deposits Made by Tenants
9
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Law 238-A – Limitation on Fees
10
NYC.gov. What to Do if Your Rent Goes Up
11
New York State Senate. New Rights for Tenants – Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019
12
New York Courts. Being Evicted
13
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes
14
New York State Assembly. A08281 – Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019