5 months without rent pay

[Tony Merchan]

I have a two family house in Queens NY

1st floor tenant has been paying up to date

2nd floor tenant has stop paying since March , spoke to him today said he won’t pay until July because of covid . Now I spoke to my attorney there isn’t much to do since New York is tenant friendly, courts are backed up , evection are on hold . On Wednesday NY passed a bill that would temporarily stop landlords from evicting tenants for no payment issue related to the pandemic ? What about landlords ? I still have to pay mortgage and taxes . I tried to speak to tenant he’s just very aggressive there’s no form of communication with him . FYI he’s lease doesn’t end until November 2020 .

[Joe Splitrock]

@Tony Merchan NY landlords have a constitutional problem on their hands. The executive order barring evictions is a violation of the 5th amendment and 14th amendment. No person shall be denied their property rights without due process. An eviction ban is taking property, by denying rights to recover property that is not being paid for. They try to get around this by stating a tenant must still pay rent, but the courts block any legal recourse to recover rent or recover the property (eviction), so the landlord is denied due process. So it is one or the other, either they are taking without compensation or they are denying due process. The 14th amendment bars the states from denying due process. The courts arbitrarily determined what are essential court cases. For example a tenant can sue a landlord for shutting off utilities, even though the landlord can't sue a tenant to get rent to pay for those utilities. The courts have chosen one persons rights over another. 

You could even argue that since the 14th amendment requires equal protection, a landlord and tenant should have equal rights. By choosing what laws to enforce and who to favor, they are violating these constitutional rights.

These executive orders are a massive overreach of power by the Governor Cuomo and the courts. They could extend these orders for months or years and by shutting the courts, they remove the opportunity to even be questioned on their actions. This needs to be challenged in court and probably even at a federal level if the state refuses to hear the case.