Will Supreme Court get rid of Rent Stabilized units in NY

[Cylon452]

Will Supreme Court even hear this case? With the over turn or Roe anything is possible.
Always something with these Building owners. They want the Rent Controls abolished in New York.
I sorta figures when the RS laws were passed in 2019 for good reason the building owners where up to no good.
The Supreme court full of Republicans are the same people that over turned Roe vs Wade. These building owners know the Republicans are in the majority so the building owners are going to try to say the RS laws in NYC are unconstitutional and must be abolished.

All the State Courts low and high said NO to getting rid of RS laws.
There argument is that the RS laws are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is considering a petition to hear a case that challenges New York City's rent stabilization law as pressure builds from stakeholders who say the law infringes on the rights of property owners.

The Supreme Court is supposed to decide to make a decision whether or not to hear this in September 2023.

https://indypendent.org/2023/03/will-su ... trol-laws/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/suppor ... ontrol-law

What do you thing is going to happen ?

[TenantNet]

Hard to say. Five years ago, I'd say there's no threat. But a number of things have changed, including the rise of the Trump/MAGA state and the overloading of Supreme Court with conservatives. Most tenant attorneys point to previous attempts by landlord without success. But I wouldn't bank on that. Remember, many thought Roe v. Wade was safe.

Tenants are not doing much on this. The crazy tenant groups (socialist millennials) are focused on goals that are bad policy and not likely to happen, i.e., Good Cause Eviction. They aren't lifting a finger to seek repeal of Urstadt, or to clean-up DHCR.

Some say that tenants bit off too much in changing the law in 2019.

This is a topic worth exploring, but it should look at the potential SCOTUS case, not back and forth on whether RS/RC is good or bad. No trolling by anyone.

[valleykid]

I am very scared of this possibility and do not trust the current Supreme Court to rule in favor of tenants. What can be done to voice our concerns?

If they do strike down RS - what do we think the course of action will be for current tenants? Will be be allowed to stay for a certain period and/or not pass down apartments? Will we be immediately subjected to market rate rents? In the case of the latter I would have to vacate the apartment I have lived in for 40+ years immediately.

This keeps me up at night.

[TenantNet]

If you really want to get into the thick of it, you need to read the complaint and see upon what basis the LLs hope to annul rent regulations. It has to be a challenge based on legal principles, not that they don't like it. There are also many cases that came before where the courts denied LLs challenges.

If the courts annul the system, then the NYS legislature will have to get working and come up with an alternative that would stand the objection raised by the courts. That's all I can say now. No one really knows where all this is going and it's mostly speculation.

[Bigskunk911]

I read that during the Reagan administration some wanted to pre-empt cities from doing rent control perhaps with threat of federal funding, but federalism (allowing states/cities sometimes flexibility to make their own rules) prevailed. There used to be federal rent control from time to time. States are free to regulate commerce and pricing though if its interstate there can be an issue. The only issue I can see is requirement to renew lease and/or if the tenant and their family wants building for personal use. Again, not a lawyer but speculation is just that, it's important to know that the SC only takes a handful of cases even though there is a lot of media attention on it, the lower courts decide a lot of cases and issues. This means that if SC is sympthatic given constraints and time/docket not all interesting cases make it through.

[TenantNet]

I don't know if one can chalk it up to "federalism," but there certainly are legal precedents supporting rent regulation, that is, of course, unless the court ignores the precedents like they did with ROE.

I don't get your point of "only issue..."

Federal rent control was in the 1940's and essentially a WW2 provision. I think it expired around 1947-48 or so. Then there was statewide rent control, but that also eventually went away. The RC we have now comes from 1962 and the RS we have now goes back to 1969 or 1974 (there are two flavors), most of what you see is from 1974.

You might remember that President Nixon used price controls in the 1970's. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock

There were three cases going to SCOTUS. On one case SCOTUS said they will not hear it, but the other two are up in the air. I know tenant attorneys are keeping an eye out in case the court decides to hear one or both of the other cases. SCOTUS can decide if it wishes, but it's becoming less and less likely.

There is a current case - not about RC/RS explicitly, but about how states use regulatory authority. (Google "supreme court chevron") and that might have an impact on any rule any state uses. In the last few days there have been many articles on this.

[Bigskunk911]

I agree with you, a bit off-topic but things like the comstock act could've been repealed or certain laws passed to ensure rights, rather than "trust" that statues are antiquated and the courts won't over-turn a past ruling. That's a problem of simply relying on the courts which is needed from time to time but no total substitute for lobbying legsilature to change the law.

As for good cause eviction, while I do agree that upper-middle income tenants should have protection, (and politicians represent them) not sure its an easy sell if someone rents a new $15k a month apartment in tribeca during the pandemic and then "locks in the price" for 3-4% when the market rate is $20k a month. The issue of good cause eviction sort-of-died a bit with the new 421-a regulations that took affect after 2015. Prior to that 421-a market tenants had RS protections for quite some time after moving in,now new buildings aren't required to give market rate tenants RS status. The 4 unit exemption may not cover many folks. I think tenants groups are lobbying to repal the ursadth law, but depends on the size of the nyc delegation in ny. One of the best things to protect tenants is to reform DHCR.

Speaking of federal v. state/local, had a conversation with a city agency explaning whether DHCR's position as to whether a LIHTC/Federal agreement pre-empts with the rent restrictions in 421-a. But the urstadh law came up not by name, but the fact that once rents are registered even if something's messed up, its up the DHCR to enforce,though symphatic.PM me if you need more information if this may apply to you.

[Bigskunk911]

I don't know if one can chalk it up to "federalism," but there certainly are legal precedents supporting rent regulation, that is, of course, unless the court ignores the precedents like they did with ROE.

I don't get your point of "only issue..."

[What I meant to clarify was price controls and regulation have occured throughout history and have largely been upheld and ignored by the courts,but it's possible that the government forcing a property owner to keep renting to a tenant indefintely could be a rights issue especially if they want to take personal possession]

[Government regulates things all the time, a bit off topic but its legal to sleep with another consenting adult and perhaps have a third-party, but pay for it , even a few bucks or offer something in exchange, its a crime,even if both parties have no abuse history and or wealthy lavish earners]

Federal rent control was in the 1940's and essentially a WW2 provision. I think it expired around 1947-48 or so. Then there was statewide rent control, but that also eventually went away. The RC we have now comes from 1962 and the RS we have now goes back to 1969 or 1974 (there are two flavors), most of what you see is from 1974.

You might remember that President Nixon used price controls in the 1970's. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_shock

There were three cases going to SCOTUS. On one case SCOTUS said they will not hear it, but the other two are up in the air. I know tenant attorneys are keeping an eye out in case the court decides to hear one or both of the other cases. SCOTUS can decide if it wishes, but it's becoming less and less likely.

There is a current case - not about RC/RS explicitly, but about how states use regulatory authority. (Google "supreme court chevron") and that might have an impact on any rule any state uses. In the last few days there have been many articles on this.

[TenantNet]

If you're going to quote something, please leave your comments out of the quote. Also, please, try not to get into things like discussion of states rights and the like. That is not what this forum is about. See the forum rules.

[Bigskunk911]

I'm new to the forum, so the brackets I thought were a way to differiante what my comments from the original.

To simplify, I was just trying to make the point that government regulates commerce all the time, that is the exchange of money, so rent regulation should be upheld,but perhaps an argument that an LL can be forced to re-rent the same apartment or home indefinitely may not pass muster at some point. The same would for short term-rentals, I don't think cities are preventing folks from having a guest stay at their residence for a week or 2, but the moment there's an exchange of commerce, its regulated or banned.

'm aware that california which has rent control allows an owner to take a residence for personal use but they must convert or utilitize as a single family home. In new york, you are allowed to do the same except if there's an elderly or disabled tenant and the new law says your only allowed to take 1 unit for personal use. It's unclear whether the SC will uphold this and can all-together rule that an LL can't be forced to re-lease the property.

Theoritcally, a city can then impose a vacancy tax, however there is a lawsuit in california about that on the grounds it violates the "taking clause".

[TenantNet]

No, because quotes are meant to put a followup post in context and not necessarily meant to be read. In some cases I will just edit a user's post to delete the quotations as they are a repeat of what is already on the page. Some people will just quote the entire page which is a waste of hard drive space.

Much of what you said is outside of the scope of this forum. Some repeat phrases they might have heard in an Econ 101 class (i.e., "willing buyer and willing seller") and otherwise have no idea about that they are speaking. See No. 5 on the forum rules. We try to stay away from conceptual or hypothetical discussions.

If you want to look at the actual case briefs, they are likely on PACER (for federal court cases). But again, all that is beyond the scope of this forum.

[Bigskunk911]

The Pacer system is expensive and pricing is out of line with today's modern digital technology, a bit off-topic but this presents/discourages the lay person from otherwise accessing many decisions. Congress has made many attempts over the years to address it but it wasn't reformed.

[TenantNet]

Up to a certain point, Pacer is free. If you access it only on occasion, chances are you won't be charged. I haven't had to pay them anything.

[Bigskunk911]

My point wasn't the "willing buyer,willing seller" concept which was more prevelant during the early 20th century but rather that states have a great lee-way to establish rules amongst commerce. During natural disasters for example, states have price-gouging laws and other laws such as price-fixing,anti-trust,public utilities commission rates,etc mean that regulation of prices has been so common for so long, it doesn't seem as likely the court will struck down attempts.