Good Cause Eviction Law

On April 20, 2024, the New York State legislature passed an important bill called “Good Cause Eviction.” Activists had been fighting for this since 2018, but the bill’s language changed a lot in the last few weeks, so many advocates are now scrambling to understand the law that got passed. Here is some of the basic information you need to know.
What is Good Cause?
If Good Cause eviction protections cover a tenant, it means that there are limits to how much the landlord can increase your rent at lease renewal time, and they should only be able to deny you a renewal lease if they have a solid reason (a.k.a. “Good cause”).
A landlord can still deny a covered tenant a renewal lease if the tenant doesn’t pay rent, engages in illegal activity in the building, or violates the terms of the current lease. They can also deny a renewal lease if they plan to convert the unit to another use (like an office or a storefront), if they want to recover the unit for personal use, or if they plan to demolish the building.
The rent increase limits are either 10% or 5% + the Consumer Price index (CPI), whichever is lower. So for the current year, the limit would be 8.82% . The state housing agency will report on the annual CPI for calculating the allowable increases. If your landlord tries to increase your rent more than that, you can tell them that this is higher than the new law allows, and if the dispute ends up in Housing Court, you could claim this as a defense. The landlord may argue that they have costs that justify going higher, but it is simply too soon to know how judges will interpret this part of the law or react to these arguments.