What Is the Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA)?

The Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 is a New York State law that extends rent stabilization to qualifying municipalities outside New York City. It caps how much a landlord can raise the rent each year, requires landlords to offer lease renewals on the same terms, and limits the grounds for refusing to renew. The law applies to buildings with six or more apartments built before January 1, 1974, in cities, towns, and villages that have formally declared a housing emergency.¹

Where the Law Applies

For its first forty-five years, the ETPA reached only communities within Nassau, Westchester, and Rockland counties. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA) removed that geographic restriction, and any municipality in New York can now opt in.¹ Kingston adopted ETPA in 2022 and Poughkeepsie did so in 2024.

The opt-in isn’t automatic. A local legislative body must first commission a housing vacancy survey of residential buildings with six or more units built before 1974. If the vacancy rate for that class of housing is at or below 5%, the municipality may declare a housing emergency and adopt ETPA protections.² Owners who fail to respond to the survey are counted as having zero vacancies, which pushes the rate down and gives owners a reason to cooperate. Local leaders must periodically revisit the vacancy rate to confirm the emergency still exists.

Which Apartments Are Covered

Not every rental in an ETPA municipality is rent-stabilized. The core requirement is a building with six or more residential units completed before January 1, 1974.¹ A municipality can set a higher unit threshold when it opts in, but it cannot go below six.³

Several categories of housing sit outside the law:

Buildings with fewer than six apartments.
Buildings completed on or after January 1, 1974, unless they received a tax benefit such as 421-a that required rent stabilization as a condition.
Apartments already governed by older rent control statutes, which stay under those rules.
Public housing and certain other governmentally supervised units.
Motor courts, tourist homes, and certain nonprofit-operated units.³

Before 2019, landlords could permanently deregulate apartments when the rent crossed a high-rent threshold at vacancy, or when a tenant’s household income exceeded $200,000 for two consecutive years while rent was above the threshold. The HSTPA repealed both pathways. Rent-stabilized apartments can no longer be stripped of stabilization based on rent levels or tenant income. Units that were lawfully deregulated before June 14, 2019, remain deregulated.⁴

How Your Rent Can Be Raised

In each county with an ETPA municipality, a Rent Guidelines Board meets annually to review building operating costs, cost-of-living data, and housing market conditions. The board sets the maximum percentage increase a landlord may charge on one-year and two-year renewal leases.² The HSTPA eliminated the automatic 20% vacancy bonus landlords used to apply when a stabilized unit turned over, and no Rent Guidelines Board can set a separate vacancy increase.⁴

The renewal process has firm deadlines. The landlord must sign, date, and send a renewal lease offer by certified mail no more than 120 days and no fewer than 90 days before the current lease expires, at the legal regulated rent allowed by the board, on the same terms as the expiring lease. You then have 60 days to choose a term, sign, and return it by certified mail. The landlord has 30 days from receiving your signed form to send back a fully executed copy. Miss that 30-day deadline and the landlord loses the right to bring an eviction based on nonrenewal.⁵

If your lease shows two rent figures, the lower is a preferential rent and the higher is the full legal regulated rent. Before 2019, landlords could raise rent to the full legal amount at any renewal. For any tenant paying a preferential rent on or after June 14, 2019, that preferential rent now stays in place for as long as the tenant remains in the apartment, and Rent Guidelines Board increases are calculated on the preferential rent, not the legal regulated rent. The landlord can charge the full legal regulated rent only after the tenant permanently vacates. Lease clauses that condition preferential rent on paying by a specific day or on electronic payment are unenforceable.⁶

A landlord who makes a building-wide capital improvement, such as replacing a boiler or roof, can apply to the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) to pass the cost through as a Major Capital Improvement (MCI) rent increase. Tenants get notice of the application and a chance to respond in writing. Even when DHCR approves the increase, the amount passed through to any tenant is capped at 2% of current rent per year, phased in over additional years if the total runs higher. The increase must be removed after 30 years, and if the landlord doesn’t add it to the rent within 120 days of the lawful collection date or the next renewal (whichever is later), the increase can be permanently waived.⁷

Security Deposits

Security deposits for rent-stabilized apartments follow the same statewide rule that applies to every residential tenancy in New York: no more than one month’s rent, and no additional advances allowed. After you move out, the landlord has 14 days to return the deposit along with an itemized statement listing any deductions. Allowable deductions are limited to unpaid rent, damage beyond normal wear and tear, and unpaid utility charges you owed to the landlord under the lease. A landlord who misses the 14-day deadline forfeits the right to keep any part of the deposit. Willful violations can expose the landlord to punitive damages up to twice the deposit, and no lease clause can waive these protections.⁸

Services, Succession, and Eviction Protections

A landlord must keep providing the same services available at the start of the tenancy, including essentials like heat and hot water and amenities like laundry rooms or parking that were part of the original arrangement. Cutting those back without DHCR approval is a violation. If writing to your landlord doesn’t fix the problem, you can file Form RA-81 (Application for a Rent Reduction Based Upon Decreased Services) with DHCR’s Office of Rent Administration. DHCR can order a rent reduction that stays in place until services are restored and the agency issues a restoration order.⁹

Succession rights let a qualifying family member take over a stabilized lease when the tenant of record dies or permanently leaves. The family member must have lived in the apartment as a primary resident with the tenant of record for at least two years immediately before the departure or death. For a senior citizen (62 or older) or a person with a disability, the required period drops to one year. A family member who moved in at the start of the tenancy or at the start of the relationship with the tenant may also qualify regardless of the two-year rule. DHCR defines “family member” broadly for this purpose, and a landlord who contests a succession claim must do so through DHCR rather than by refusing to recognize the new tenant.¹⁰

A landlord cannot simply decline to renew a stabilized lease. To refuse renewal based on personal or family use of the apartment, the landlord must apply to DHCR for a certificate of eviction by filing Form RA-54 and can only go to court after DHCR grants it. Owner-occupancy eviction is barred entirely when any household member lawfully occupying the apartment is 62 or older, has lived in the building for 15 years or more, or is a person with a disability. The same protection applies statewide in buildings converted to non-eviction cooperative ownership.¹¹

If You Think You’re Being Overcharged

Start by pulling your apartment’s rent registration history, which tracks the legal regulated rent year by year. DHCR offers an online inquiry portal, in-person district offices, and a mail option using Form REC-1.¹² The formal complaint is Form RA-89, which asks you to list your lease history and payments for the past six years or from the start of your tenancy, whichever is shorter.¹³

Before the HSTPA, overcharge review was limited to a four-year lookback. The HSTPA extended that to six years, giving DHCR a longer window to catch compounding errors in a rent history.⁴ A Rent Administrator reviews evidence from both sides and issues a written order. Either party can challenge the order through a Petition for Administrative Review (PAR), and a PAR decision can in turn be reviewed by a court in an Article 78 proceeding.¹⁴

Using a Section 8 Voucher in a Stabilized Apartment

Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers can be used in ETPA-stabilized apartments. Federal rules recognize that voucher rents can be subject to state or local rent stabilization alongside the federal rent reasonableness standard, which means the landlord is bound by whichever produces the lower figure.¹⁵ At initial lease-up, if gross rent exceeds the applicable payment standard, the family’s share cannot exceed 40% of monthly adjusted income. Because stabilized rents often sit below market rates in the same area, a covered apartment can keep a voucher holder’s out-of-pocket share manageable.

1
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Rent Stabilization and Emergency Tenant Protection Act
2
City of Hudson, New York. McKinney’s Unconsolidated Laws – Emergency Tenant Protection Act of Nineteen Seventy-Four
3
New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) – Office of Rent Administration. Fact Sheet 8 – Emergency Tenant Protection Act (ETPA) of 1974
4
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 – Rent Laws Overview
5
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. 9 CRR-NY 2523.5 – Notice for Renewal of Lease and Renewal Procedure
6
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 40 – Preferential Rents
7
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Apartment (IAI) and Building (MCI) Improvements
8
New York State Senate. New York General Obligations Law 7-108
9
Homes and Community Renewal. Living Conditions and Essential Services
10
Homes and Community Renewal. Succession
11
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 10 – Eviction from an Apartment Based on Owner Occupancy
12
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Most Common Rent Regulation Issues for Tenants
13
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. RA-89 – Tenant’s Complaint of Rent and Other Specific Overcharges in a Rent Stabilized Apartment
14
New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Fact Sheet 18 – Appealing a Rent Administrator’s Order – Petition for Administrative Review (PAR)
15
eCFR. Section 8 Tenant-Based Assistance – Housing Choice Voucher Program