Protect Tenants and Give New York City’s Small Landlords Equal Justice
The Issue
To Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the New York City Council, and New York State housing and court officials:
We, the undersigned New Yorkers, support strong protections for tenants. Every New Yorker deserves a safe, habitable home, and tenants facing dangerous conditions or irresponsible landlords should have meaningful and timely access to the courts.
But fairness cannot run in only one direction. New York City’s small landlords — families and individuals who own a brownstone, a two-family home, or a small apartment building — also deserve timely access to justice when they face serious lease violations, substantial property damage, chronic nonpayment of rent, illegal activity, or tenants who abuse a court system in which cases can take months to resolve.
We applaud faster justice. We ask that it be fair justice. In August 2026, the Mamdani administration announced an expedited Housing Court initiative designed to provide tenants facing certain serious housing conditions with dramatically faster access to court. Under the fast-track process, qualifying cases are assigned to a judge on the day they are filed and, after service is completed, the parties must appear in court within no more than five days.
The principle behind this initiative is compelling: When someone’s housing, property, safety, or financial security is seriously threatened, that person should not have to wait months for the justice system to respond. We agree. But that principle should apply to responsible small landlords too. Small landlords are not large corporations. The public debate about housing frequently speaks about “landlords” as though they were a single group of large real-estate companies. They are not.
New York City has approximately 225,000 two-family structures, and roughly 216,000 of the homes in those structures are owner-occupied. In many of these properties, the homeowner lives in one unit and rents the other. Another approximately 77,000 New York City homeowners live in small three-to-five-family and other small multifamily properties, generally renting the remaining apartments.
These are often New Yorkers who live in the same buildings as their tenants. They pay mortgages, property taxes, water bills, insurance, heating costs, repairs, maintenance, and increasingly expensive construction and regulatory costs. Many purchased a small property as a way to build modest generational wealth, supplement retirement income, or provide financial security for their families.
Collectively, small property owners provide an important part of New York City’s housing supply. They should not be treated as though they have the resources of major real-estate corporations.
A bad tenant can devastate a small property owner. For an owner with hundreds or thousands of apartments, one tenant who stops paying rent may be a manageable business loss. For a homeowner with one rental apartment, losing that rental income for many months can be financially devastating.
- The mortgage does not stop.
- Property taxes do not stop. Insurance premiums do not stop. Heating and water bills do not stop.
- The obligation to repair and maintain the property does not stop.
- A small landlord can therefore be required to continue financing housing for months while waiting for the legal system to resolve a serious case.
And nonpayment is not the only problem. Small property owners can encounter tenants who substantially damage apartments, repeatedly violate leases, create dangerous conditions, illegally sublet units, disturb other residents, or exploit procedural delays to remain in a property while ignoring their contractual obligations.
Most tenants do not behave this way. Just as most landlords are not negligent or abusive. Housing policy should not be written on the assumption that every tenant is vulnerable and every landlord is powerful. Sometimes the vulnerable party is the elderly homeowner renting the floor above her home. Sometimes it is the immigrant family whose two-family house represents decades of savings. Sometimes it is a middle-class New Yorker whose rental income is what allows the family to pay the mortgage and keep the building. Their rights matter too. We are asking for equal access to timely justice.
Mayor Mamdani, if New York City can recognize that certain tenant cases are sufficiently urgent to deserve expedited judicial attention, then it should work with the courts and the State to establish a comparable mechanism for qualifying cases involving small landlords. We therefore respectfully call upon your administration to:
1. Establish a Small Landlord Housing Court Fast Track for qualifying owners of small residential properties, particularly owner-occupied two-, three-, and four-family homes and owners with only a small number of rental units.
2. Provide expedited hearings for serious cases, including substantial and persistent nonpayment of rent, significant intentional property damage, dangerous conduct, illegal subletting, and other material lease violations.
3. Create a Small Property Owner Legal Assistance Program so that ordinary homeowners are not forced to spend thousands of dollars navigating an extraordinarily complicated housing court system.
4. Establish a Small Landlord Office or Ombudsman within city government to help owners understand housing regulations, access financial assistance, resolve tenant disputes, and comply with their legal responsibilities.
5. Give small landlords a meaningful voice in housing policy. Any city task force, commission, or major initiative concerning tenant protections and Housing Court reform should include representatives of small and owner-occupied rental properties — not merely large real-estate interests.
6. Collect and publicly report data on small landlords, including the length of nonpayment proceedings, unpaid rent accumulated during cases, property foreclosures or distress, and the loss of small rental properties from the city’s housing stock. Protecting small landlords also protects tenants.
This is not a petition against tenants. It is a petition for fairness. New York needs responsible landlords, particularly small landlords who maintain two-, three-, and four-family homes and provide apartments throughout Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan.
If responsible small owners conclude that renting an apartment exposes their families to unlimited financial risk with no timely legal remedy, some will stop renting those units. Others may sell their properties. And some of New York’s most naturally occurring small-scale rental housing could disappear. That outcome helps neither landlords nor tenants.
Mayor Mamdani, we support your commitment to ensuring that tenants receive their day in court. Now give small landlords their day in court too. A just housing system should protect a tenant from a bad landlord. It should also protect a good landlord from a bad tenant. Rights must come with responsibilities — on both sides of the lease. We ask your administration to work with the New York State Unified Court System, the City Council, state lawmakers, tenant representatives, and small property owners to establish a fair and expedited Housing Court process for qualifying small landlords.
We, the undersigned, call upon Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the appropriate city and state authorities to act.
180
The Issue
To Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the New York City Council, and New York State housing and court officials:
We, the undersigned New Yorkers, support strong protections for tenants. Every New Yorker deserves a safe, habitable home, and tenants facing dangerous conditions or irresponsible landlords should have meaningful and timely access to the courts.
But fairness cannot run in only one direction. New York City’s small landlords — families and individuals who own a brownstone, a two-family home, or a small apartment building — also deserve timely access to justice when they face serious lease violations, substantial property damage, chronic nonpayment of rent, illegal activity, or tenants who abuse a court system in which cases can take months to resolve.
We applaud faster justice. We ask that it be fair justice. In August 2026, the Mamdani administration announced an expedited Housing Court initiative designed to provide tenants facing certain serious housing conditions with dramatically faster access to court. Under the fast-track process, qualifying cases are assigned to a judge on the day they are filed and, after service is completed, the parties must appear in court within no more than five days.
The principle behind this initiative is compelling: When someone’s housing, property, safety, or financial security is seriously threatened, that person should not have to wait months for the justice system to respond. We agree. But that principle should apply to responsible small landlords too. Small landlords are not large corporations. The public debate about housing frequently speaks about “landlords” as though they were a single group of large real-estate companies. They are not.
New York City has approximately 225,000 two-family structures, and roughly 216,000 of the homes in those structures are owner-occupied. In many of these properties, the homeowner lives in one unit and rents the other. Another approximately 77,000 New York City homeowners live in small three-to-five-family and other small multifamily properties, generally renting the remaining apartments.
These are often New Yorkers who live in the same buildings as their tenants. They pay mortgages, property taxes, water bills, insurance, heating costs, repairs, maintenance, and increasingly expensive construction and regulatory costs. Many purchased a small property as a way to build modest generational wealth, supplement retirement income, or provide financial security for their families.
Collectively, small property owners provide an important part of New York City’s housing supply. They should not be treated as though they have the resources of major real-estate corporations.
A bad tenant can devastate a small property owner. For an owner with hundreds or thousands of apartments, one tenant who stops paying rent may be a manageable business loss. For a homeowner with one rental apartment, losing that rental income for many months can be financially devastating.
- The mortgage does not stop.
- Property taxes do not stop. Insurance premiums do not stop. Heating and water bills do not stop.
- The obligation to repair and maintain the property does not stop.
- A small landlord can therefore be required to continue financing housing for months while waiting for the legal system to resolve a serious case.
And nonpayment is not the only problem. Small property owners can encounter tenants who substantially damage apartments, repeatedly violate leases, create dangerous conditions, illegally sublet units, disturb other residents, or exploit procedural delays to remain in a property while ignoring their contractual obligations.
Most tenants do not behave this way. Just as most landlords are not negligent or abusive. Housing policy should not be written on the assumption that every tenant is vulnerable and every landlord is powerful. Sometimes the vulnerable party is the elderly homeowner renting the floor above her home. Sometimes it is the immigrant family whose two-family house represents decades of savings. Sometimes it is a middle-class New Yorker whose rental income is what allows the family to pay the mortgage and keep the building. Their rights matter too. We are asking for equal access to timely justice.
Mayor Mamdani, if New York City can recognize that certain tenant cases are sufficiently urgent to deserve expedited judicial attention, then it should work with the courts and the State to establish a comparable mechanism for qualifying cases involving small landlords. We therefore respectfully call upon your administration to:
1. Establish a Small Landlord Housing Court Fast Track for qualifying owners of small residential properties, particularly owner-occupied two-, three-, and four-family homes and owners with only a small number of rental units.
2. Provide expedited hearings for serious cases, including substantial and persistent nonpayment of rent, significant intentional property damage, dangerous conduct, illegal subletting, and other material lease violations.
3. Create a Small Property Owner Legal Assistance Program so that ordinary homeowners are not forced to spend thousands of dollars navigating an extraordinarily complicated housing court system.
4. Establish a Small Landlord Office or Ombudsman within city government to help owners understand housing regulations, access financial assistance, resolve tenant disputes, and comply with their legal responsibilities.
5. Give small landlords a meaningful voice in housing policy. Any city task force, commission, or major initiative concerning tenant protections and Housing Court reform should include representatives of small and owner-occupied rental properties — not merely large real-estate interests.
6. Collect and publicly report data on small landlords, including the length of nonpayment proceedings, unpaid rent accumulated during cases, property foreclosures or distress, and the loss of small rental properties from the city’s housing stock. Protecting small landlords also protects tenants.
This is not a petition against tenants. It is a petition for fairness. New York needs responsible landlords, particularly small landlords who maintain two-, three-, and four-family homes and provide apartments throughout Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan.
If responsible small owners conclude that renting an apartment exposes their families to unlimited financial risk with no timely legal remedy, some will stop renting those units. Others may sell their properties. And some of New York’s most naturally occurring small-scale rental housing could disappear. That outcome helps neither landlords nor tenants.
Mayor Mamdani, we support your commitment to ensuring that tenants receive their day in court. Now give small landlords their day in court too. A just housing system should protect a tenant from a bad landlord. It should also protect a good landlord from a bad tenant. Rights must come with responsibilities — on both sides of the lease. We ask your administration to work with the New York State Unified Court System, the City Council, state lawmakers, tenant representatives, and small property owners to establish a fair and expedited Housing Court process for qualifying small landlords.
We, the undersigned, call upon Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the appropriate city and state authorities to act.
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on 7 September 2026