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Eviction Cases Can Proceed For Tenants Who Didn't File Hardship Forms During Pause
By
Beth Fertig
Published Feb 27, 2021
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By
Beth Fertig
Published Feb 27, 2021
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Fewer than 9,000 New York City tenants have filed forms by Friday morning with the housing court system seeking to postpone any evictions until May 1st due to COVID-19-related troubles, according to figures by the Office of Court Administration (OCA).
The total number of hardship declarations, 8,901 in New York City, could still grow and does not include those filed directly with landlords. The OCA said all forms received until midnight Sunday, February 28th, will be considered on time. Only tenants who file by then can take full advantage of the May 1st eviction moratorium, which was extended after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed it into law in December. The law also pauses foreclosure proceedings against small landlords who file documents with their lenders or courts. February 26th was the state’s deadline for tenants to file these hardship declarations with either the courts or their landlords.
Tenant advocates said the 8,901 hardship filings do not represent the total number of people who will eventually find themselves taken to court for not paying rent in the pandemic.
Malika Conner, director of organizing for the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, said there are estimates that 40,000 non-payment petitions have been filed in the city since the start of the pandemic, the first step in eviction proceedings, a much lower number than usual.
However, Conner didn’t expect many tenants would submit the new hardship forms in January and February after the eviction moratorium was extended again in December.
“Because if you weren’t actively in court or had an eviction case, folks might not have known that it would be useful for them to proactively submit this form,” she explained.
Among the 8,901 who filed, OCA said 7,613 already had pending eviction cases and 1,288 came from people trying to postpone such proceedings.
Those who don’t file on time can still submit a form before May 1st. But their landlords can start the eviction process after the February 26 deadline.
Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents about 4,000 landlords of small and mid-sized buildings, said his members will continue handing out the forms to their tenants. “We know the need vastly outnumbers the forms that were filled out,” he said.
While his organization estimates city tenants owe more than $1 billion in back rent, he said only a small percentage of tenants have consistently failed to pay rent to their landlords. He said 80% of all arrears in rent stabilized units are held by 5% of renters. Just about 3,000 tenants were evicted in all of 2020, and it’s believed most were executed before the pandemic.
In moving ahead on eviction proceedings, OCA spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said the city’s housing court system will prioritize pre-pandemic cases where a declaration hasn't been filed and where each side has an attorney.
“Each judge is calendaring two-attorney pre-pandemic cases in their own parts, but it would not be surprising to see a couple hundred cases per day conferenced citywide to start,” he explained.
Chalfen said cases without pandemic-related hardship declarations will begin in April, starting at 60 cases per day, citywide, and quickly increasing from there.
In addition to nonpayment cases, he said pandemic-related holdover cases (where the landlord is seeing possession of an apartment) will also proceed if the occupant didn’t respond and didn’t file a declaration, and if the landlord claims an urgent need to go forward.
The courts will continue to move ahead with nuisance, lockout, repair, and code violation matters as they’ve done all along during the pandemic. Chalfen said there have been 1,027 nonpayment, and 586 holdover and eviction cases filed in the five boroughs since January. The law that was signed on December 28th stayed all pending proceedings for 60 days, as well as new ones filed within 30 days.
Beth Fertig is a senior reporter covering the city’s recovery efforts at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @bethfertig.
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