Good Cause Eviction Law Passed - 3 Things You Need To Know

[Matthew Drouin]

Unfortunately Good Cause Eviction passed last night in the city of Rochester, NY.

I want to thank Council Members Lashay Harris and Michael Patterson for doing the right thing and voting “NO” on this largely performative legislation…

that will only TEMPORARILY protect a small handful of city residents living in EXTREME under market rental units…

But it will have broad and adverse negative consequences for the WHOLE community.

(So please thank them and also support them 💰💸💵 because their vote was not popular… but it was right)

It’s not the end of the world but it will fundamentally change how you run your real estate housing business.

✅ First and foremost, holdover evictions will be illegal. Meaning you cannot just evict a tenant because their lease has expired.

You will have to build sufficient evidence admissible in court and to the satisfaction of a judge to prove good cause to get a warrant of eviction.

Many housing providers kept high risk tenants on month to month leases so that if the tenant stopped paying rent, you could simply give them a notice to vacate and recover possession of the rental unit that way.

The reason for this methodology was because the HSTPA of 2019 passed in NYS made it extremely onerous and costly for housing providers to evict due to non payment.

That method under good cause will be eliminated.

So you can still keep tenants month to month but you will need to document the lease violation due to nonpayment rigorously.

How many times and how late is “good” enough?

I guess we will find out when the implementation of the new law occurs and then is tested in court.

Nevertheless, written documentation will be your friend.

✅ Secondly, good cause has a max cap on yearly rental increases at a certain margin above CPI or 10%, whichever is less.

For those of you who own stabilized, high quality housing like we do, this shouldn’t be a problem.

But instead of keeping rents flat because you are a nice person or increasing just a little bit, you could get yourself in trouble when it comes to funding future major repairs and capital expenditures.

As long as you are increasing to what the market will bear, you will be in good shape.

Also if you are looking at purchasing blighted, dilapidated housing with the intent of raising rents and financing improvements to the property, you will have to take this into consideration and buy accordingly and on in place rents not projected rents.

On the implementation side, however that pans out, you might be able to get these necessary rent increases to finance repairs but you may need to go to housing court in order to get the green light but we are just not sure at this point and remains to be seen.

✅ Thirdly, in regard to objectionable tenancy and nuisance caused by disruptive tenants, you will need to document these violations with undeniable evidence.

Because police reports are not usually able to be procured due to disturbances like drug trafficking or domestic violence, you’ll need to take matters into your own hands on producing that documentation.

I recommend getting security cameras installed in all common areas and outside your properties.

I’ve used SimpliSafe security cameras but you’ll need to install WiFi service at your properties so that you can maintain recordings in the event of violations and add to your lease that any tampering with said cameras constitutes a lease violation as well.

This is still developing and once we get further clarity, we will host a round table with legal experts on how to best protect our properties and residents.

[Greg Scott]

Good post. New news for me.  Thankfully I have no property in NY.

I loved this quote which shows just how clueless people are about housing issues:

“Housing instability is at the root of so many problems facing our city, such as exacerbating homelessness and hunger, failing to meet our children’s educational needs, and undermining public safety,” said the CWTU in a statement. “Passing Good Cause is not only a step toward tackling these systemic issues—it is the vital foundation to any meaningful action.”

In a free market economy, how will those providing housing react to a law that forces them to house non-paying tenants for free?  Any rational landlord will double or triple their screening efforts because nobody wants to accidentally put a deadbeat in their property.  Any prospective resident with bad credit or a prior eviction is going to have an impossible time finding a place to live.  

I predict this bill will increase homelessness in Rochester NY or will force people to move outside of the city to find housing.