"Housing Is a Human Right" = Landlords Have Less Rights

[William Coet]

New rent laws recently went into effect in New York State on June 14.  There are advocates for these laws that claim "housing is a human right".  Landlords everywhere need to realize this is a dangerous concept and contact their representatives to explain the problems with this type of legislation. The concept that housing is a human right is a political tool to win votes that has led to the government supporting tenants who want to pay late and prevent landlords from charging legal fees to enforce the payment terms of the lease (see specifics below). It should be alarming to anybody paying attention that there are people who believe government should use legislation to take control of rental property. Landlords are the ones who pay mortgages, taxes, insurance, and maintenance and they are faced with late charges and harmed credit if they do not make their payment on time.  Landlord organizations need to take action and contact their representatives to stop this government takeover of their property.  

"Housing attorney Nicholas Miraglia, from Burgess & Miraglia,

specializes in evictions. He said that he handled more than 3,000

evictions in Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse last year and noted three

key changes for renters.

The first change is how landlords can demand late rent. Under the old laws, a landlord could simply ask for late rent and that would be considered a legal warning. Now, a landlord needs to hire someone to serve a notice to a tenant, telling them they have two weeks to pay or they’re headed to court.

“The only thing at this point now recoverable is base rent only,” said Miraglia.

That means if a tenant is taken to court, a landlord can no longer ask the tenant

to cover a landlord’s legal or late fees, the second key change in the

laws. The final key change can stop an eviction. If the tenant can’t settle on an

arrangement with the landlord in court, they can pay the base rent

without late fees, and not be evicted.

“The tenant could say oh… I have the thousand dollars that I was supposed to

have a month ago and by law the whole thing starts over again,” said

Miraglia. He also noted that with those new laws the landlords are on the hook for their

own legal fees, and costs to serve notice to tenants. They also lose out

on late payment fees, which landlords may have used to pay bills for

those properties. If tenants pay late, then the landlord may be late

with their payments.

“There’s no corresponding changes for landlords to pay their bills 14 days late,”

said Miraglia. “You know their mortgage is always going to be due on

the first. Their water, their gas bills. So 14 days seems a little

extreme to me. It was an emergency, overnight,apparently. These laws

were passed with very little if any time for feedback. And I think that

the changes were too drastic.”

Housing advocate Ryan Acuff of Rochester’s Citywide Tenant Union thinks all the changes are a good start toward housing justice.

“People are starting to realize that when our tenants have basic rights the

community benefits as a whole,” said Acuff. “This emergency tenant

protection act will work with habitability issues because tenants will

have more protections against unjust evictions.”

But for Acuff and other advocates for housing rights, the new laws are not enough.

“You know there’s no one law or one thing that’s going to achieve total stability or housing as a human right so we need this and many other tenant protections,” said Acuff.