NYC Good Cause Eviction Law Explained: A Renter's Guide

TL;DR

• Good Cause Eviction is a New York State law signed April 20, 2024 (Real Property Law Article 6-A, sections 210 through 218). It is not rent stabilization. It is a floor for previously unprotected market-rate tenants in pre-2009 NYC buildings.
• Coverage turns on three tests, all of which must be true: pre-2009 certificate of occupancy, current rent below 245 percent of the local Fair Market Rent, and a landlord owning more than 10 units statewide.
• The 2026 rent-increase cap is 8.79 percent (CPI 3.79 percent plus 5), locked in by DHCR’s February 19, 2025 notice. The cap is presumptively reasonable, not a hard ceiling. A landlord can charge above it but must justify the excess in NYC Housing Court if challenged.
• The law lives in NYC Housing Court as an affirmative defense, not a DHCR complaint. The Right to Counsel program covered roughly 71 percent of eligible tenants in FY21 and only 30 percent by March 2025. Legal help is not automatic in 2026.
• The post-2009 building exemption is time-limited to 30 years from CO issuance. A 2009 building becomes Good Cause covered in 2039.
• The law sunsets June 15, 2034 unless Albany reauthorizes it.

Most NYC renters in market-rate apartments have never had a serious eviction-defense statute behind them. Lease terms, the notice rules of Real Property Law section 226-c, and good faith. That’s it.

The Good Cause Eviction Law changed that for a large slice of the market-rate stock on April 20, 2024. It did not change anything for rent-stabilized tenants (they already had more), and it does not apply uniformly to every other apartment. Coverage runs through three tests, the cap math runs through one DHCR notice each year, and the enforcement venue is NYC Housing Court. This page walks you through all three so you can answer the question you came here with: am I covered, what does it actually do, and how do I use it if my landlord ignores it.

For where Good Cause sits in the seven-regime NYC rental architecture, see the NYC housing guide. For the stronger regime next to it, see how rent stabilization works in NYC.

What Good Cause Is, and What It Isn’t

Good Cause Eviction is a New York State statute, codified at Real Property Law Article 6-A (sections 210 through 218), enacted as Part HH of Chapter 56 of the Laws of 2024 and signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on April 20, 2024 as part of the FY25 state budget. It auto-applies in NYC under section 212. Outside NYC, it applies only in municipalities that opt in under section 213; as of June 2025, 17 cities and villages had opted in (with more added through late 2025 and early 2026).

The law gives covered tenants two things:

1. Cause-required non-renewal and eviction. A landlord must show a legitimate reason from the section 216 enumerated list to refuse renewal or pursue eviction.
2. A presumptively reasonable annual rent-increase cap. Real Property Law section 211 sets the cap at the lesser of 10 percent, or 5 percent plus the regional CPI for the prior calendar year. For 2026, that math lands at 8.79 percent.

What Good Cause is not: it is not rent stabilization (a separate, stronger regime covering roughly 1 million NYC units), it is not rent control (a separate regime for a small set of pre-1974 continuous tenancies), it is not a freeze (8.79 percent is a real number a covered landlord can charge legally), and it is not a renewal guarantee (the rent-stabilization framework gives that; Good Cause permits non-renewal with cause). Think of Good Cause as a floor for unregulated tenants and rent stabilization as a higher ceiling for the regulated ones.

Who’s Covered: The Three-Test Coverage Check

If you take one thing from this page, take this section. Coverage turns on three tests. All three must be true for a tenant to be Good Cause covered.

Test 1: Pre-2009 building

Real Property Law section 214(8) exempts any housing accommodation “for which a temporary or permanent certificate of occupancy was issued on or after the first of January, two thousand nine, for a period of time of thirty years following issuance.”

Two things to notice. The trigger is the CO date (TCO or permanent CO), not construction commencement, not building-permit date. And the exemption is time-limited to 30 years from CO issuance, not permanent. A building with a 2009 CO becomes Good Cause covered in 2039. This is the underexplained nuance in nearly every existing journalist write-up of Good Cause. The post-2009 carve-out is rolling, not forever.

Whether substantial rehabilitation of an older building resets the CO clock for Good Cause purposes is unsettled. The statute does not address it. No published appellate authority has resolved it as of June 2026.

Test 2: Rent below 245 percent of local FMR

Real Property Law section 214(15) exempts units whose monthly rent exceeds 245 percent of the local Fair Market Rent. DHCR is statutorily required to publish updated FMR figures by August 1 each year, with the new thresholds effective the following May 1.

Manhattan thresholds, effective May 1, 2025 (per DHCR’s February 19, 2025 notice; New York County only):

These are the New York County figures. DHCR tabulates the 245 percent calculation per NYC county. The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island figures sit on the same DHCR notice but at different (typically lower) dollar levels. Pull your borough’s threshold from the live notice at hcr.ny.gov/good-cause-eviction before relying on a number. The May 1, 2026 thresholds may already be in effect by the time you read this; the cadence is August 1 publication, May 1 effect.

Worked check. Your 1BR in Manhattan rents at $4,200 a month. The May 1, 2025 threshold for a Manhattan 1BR is $5,709. Your rent sits below the threshold, so you pass Test 2.

Test 3: Landlord owns more than 10 units statewide

This is the test most renters get wrong. Real Property Law section 211 defines “small landlord” as a landlord of 10 or fewer units statewide. Owners at or below that count are exempt. Three details matter.

• Statewide, not NYC-only, not building-level. A landlord with 5 NYC units and 6 upstate units is at 11 statewide. Not small.
• Per natural person across affiliated entities. If the landlord is an entity, the entity qualifies as small only if every natural person with a direct or indirect ownership interest in the entity (or any affiliated entity) owns no more than 10 units across all their holdings. An LLC owning a 4-unit Brooklyn building does not qualify as a small landlord if any natural person with an indirect interest in the LLC owns 12 other units elsewhere. The architecture is designed against LLC shell shielding.
• Disclosure burden. An entity claiming the small-landlord exemption must identify every natural person with a direct or indirect ownership interest. If it cannot, the small-landlord claim collapses by statute.

This test is fact-intensive. Trial courts are still building doctrine on how to treat commonly-owned LLCs, family holding structures, and partnership counting. No appellate authority specifically on the natural-person counting test had been published as of June 2026.

Non-coverage categories

If you fail any of the three primary tests, Good Cause does not apply to you. The major non-coverage categories also include rent-stabilized tenants (section 214(5), already protected by the stronger regime), rent-controlled tenants (also section 214(5)), NYCHA and Section 8 tenants (section 214(5), federal-overlay regimes), Mitchell-Lama and LIHTC tenants (section 214(5), separate regulatory frames), owner-occupied buildings with 10 or fewer units (section 214(2)), and condo and co-op units (section 214(7)).

If you don’t pass all three tests, the NYC housing guide’s regulatory regime decision tree routes you to the framework that actually does apply.

The Rent-Increase Cap: How 8.79 Percent Got Set for 2026

The cap formula sits in Real Property Law section 211. The “local rent standard” is the lesser of (a) 10 percent, or (b) 5 percent plus the regional CPI for all items for the preceding calendar year. DHCR’s February 19, 2025 notice put the regional CPI reading at 3.79 percent. The math: 3.79 plus 5 equals 8.79 percent. The 10 percent ceiling check passes, so the cap for calendar year 2026 is 8.79 percent.

Worked example. Your covered 1BR rents at $3,000 a month. The maximum presumptively reasonable increase for 2026: $3,000 times 1.0879, or $3,263.70. Anything above that, your landlord must defend in Housing Court with operating-cost evidence if you challenge.

Two caveats. First, the cap is presumptively reasonable, not a hard ceiling. A landlord can charge above 8.79 percent but bears the burden of justifying the excess (rising insurance, utilities, taxes, repairs) when challenged. Second, the cap applies only to increases on existing tenancies. A new tenant signing a brand-new lease cannot challenge the starting rent as unreasonable under Good Cause. Protection attaches to year-over-year increases once the tenancy exists. The 10 percent statutory ceiling matters only in higher-inflation years; it has not bound for 2025 or 2026.

Where 8.79 percent sits against the other three regimes’ 2026 caps (RGB Order #57’s 3 / 4.5 percent, rent control’s MCR math, HCV payment standards), with the worked-example dollar math side by side, is tracked in NYC rent increase limits 2025-26.

What Good Cause Actually Does in Housing Court

Good Cause is a defense raised in NYC Housing Court (the Civil Court Housing Part). It is not a DHCR complaint. DHCR publishes the math and the thresholds; the court adjudicates the dispute.

Three scenarios trigger it. Non-renewal at lease end: the landlord sends a non-renewal notice under Real Property Law section 226-c (30, 60, or 90 days by tenancy length). If you stay past the lease end and the landlord files a holdover proceeding, you raise Good Cause as an affirmative defense. A New York County trial court has already dismissed a petition where the notice asserted “nonpayment” or “breach” without dates, amounts, or specific tenant conduct. Conclusory cause language is defective. Rent increase above the cap: you refuse to pay above 8.79 percent; if the landlord files a nonpayment proceeding, you raise Good Cause and the landlord bears the burden of justifying the excess. Eviction filing for any other reason: you raise Good Cause in the answer.

The five NYC Housing Court venues:

The Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers Street is NYC Department of Education headquarters, not Housing Court. Manhattan Housing Court is at 111 Centre Street. The procedural flow inside a case runs through Resolution Part (a settlement conference, where most cases resolve) first, then Trial Part if unresolved.

The Right to Counsel collapse is the operational truth. NYC’s Right to Counsel program (HRA’s Office of Civil Justice) guarantees eligible Housing Court defendants free representation. Per the NYC Comptroller’s “Evictions Up, Representation Down” report, the citywide rate ran 71 percent in FY21, dropped to 42 percent in FY24, and hit a citywide month low of 30 percent in March 2025. The Bronx, where evictions are most concentrated, ran from 88 percent at peak down to 31 percent. Eligible cases grew from 15,675 in 2019 to 50,487 in 2024 (222 percent); program spending grew 129 percent over the same period. When representation does occur, 89 percent of represented households avoid eviction.

Translation: a tenant raising Good Cause in 2026 cannot count on being assigned counsel. The rights the statute creates can be exercised in practice only by tenants who secure a lawyer through one of the named legal-aid programs before the court appearance, or who self-represent.

Good Cause vs. Rent Stabilization: Why Stabilized Tenants Don’t Need It

Stabilized tenants are carved out of Good Cause under Real Property Law section 214(5), which exempts units already subject to regulation of rents or evictions under local, state, or federal law. The reason is structural: rent stabilization is the stronger regime.

Good Cause is a floor for unregulated tenants. Rent stabilization is a higher ceiling for the roughly 1 million stabilized units. They do not compete; they cover different populations. One edge case worth knowing: when an apartment’s regulatory status is disputed, both regimes may be in play simultaneously. A tenant unsure whether they are stabilized should consult counsel before responding to a non-renewal, because the answer determines which regime governs the defense. For the regulated side in full, see how rent stabilization works in NYC.

What Good Cause Does NOT Cover, and What Those Tenants Have Instead

If you fail one of the three primary tests, the law does not apply to you. Where you land depends on which test failed.

• Failed Test 1 (post-2009 building): lease-only protection plus section 226-c notice (30, 60, or 90 days). After 30 years from the CO, the building flips into coverage.
• Failed Test 2 (rent above 245 percent of FMR): lease only.
• Failed Test 3 (small landlord, 10 or fewer units statewide per natural person): lease only.
• NYCHA, Section 8, Mitchell-Lama, LIHTC, HPD regulatory-agreement units: stronger federal-overlay or state-specific regimes with their own cause requirements and income-based rent setting (roughly 30 percent of adjusted household income for NYCHA and Section 8).
• Rent stabilized: the stronger regime. See above.
• Owner-occupied small properties, condos, co-ops: specific section 214 carve-outs.

For the full seven-regime map, the NYC housing guide’s regulatory regime decision tree routes every NYC renter to the framework that actually applies.

The First Court Cycle: What’s Still Being Decided

Good Cause is roughly two years old as of mid-2026. The early case law is trial-level. No First or Second Department Appellate Division merits ruling on Good Cause had been published as of June 2026.

Three trial-level rulings worth knowing. Sin Hang Lau v. Yun He Zheng (Kings County, January 2, 2025; 2025 NY Slip Op 25001) established that the August 18, 2024 pleading-requirement amendments govern proceedings filed after that date. Emerald Green Phase II L.P. v. Rivera (Kings County, June 5, 2025; 2025 NY Slip Op 50916(U)) permitted a landlord to amend a holdover petition to plead the section 214(5) exemption basis (LIHTC plus rent stabilization plus an HPD regulatory agreement). 3515 Eastchester Rd., LLC v. Soto (Bronx County, September 16, 2025; 2025 NY Slip Op 25209) dismissed a holdover proceeding for failure to serve a predicate termination notice conforming to sections 232-a, 226-c, and 231-c. The notice defect was not amendable.

Three live legal questions the appellate courts have not yet answered: (1) whether substantial rehabilitation resets the pre-2009 CO test, and under what trigger; (2) how the 10-unit count works across commonly-owned LLCs, family holding structures, and the section 211 disclosure-burden mechanic; (3) what counts as “good cause” beyond the enumerated section 216 grounds. The Center for Justice Innovation, the Community Service Society of NY, and Housing Justice for All track these. The Furman Center at NYU is the institutional academic source on housing-policy outcomes; as of June 2026, none had published a full post-implementation evaluation.

One date worth marking: June 15, 2034. The statute carries a sunset that day. Unless Albany reauthorizes the law (the mechanism is not specified in the statute itself), the protections lapse. Amendments before the sunset are possible; NYC passed a local-law layer on January 17, 2025 adding additional tenant safeguards on top of the state framework. The next material moves will be Albany decisions on amendments, appellate rulings on the questions above, and the annual DHCR notice setting the new cap and FMR thresholds.

How to Actually Invoke Good Cause If You Need To

Three steps if you are covered and facing a non-renewal, an above-cap increase, or an eviction filing.

Step 1. Run the three-test check in writing. Pre-2009 CO (verify the certificate of occupancy, or use NYC Department of Buildings records as a proxy). Rent below 245 percent of local FMR for your borough and bedroom size (verify the live figure at hcr.ny.gov/good-cause-eviction). Landlord owns more than 10 units statewide at the natural-person level (check ACRIS for property ownership, identify the landlord entity, and trace where you can). Write down each answer with the evidence.

Step 2. Gather the paperwork. Your lease, rent-history records, the DHCR Good Cause fact sheet, any section 226-c non-renewal notice or court papers you have received, and relevant dates (notice receipt, lease end, court appearance).

Step 3. Get a tenant attorney. Right to Counsel representation is not automatic in 2026. Named NYC resources: the Legal Aid Society Housing Unit (Manhattan 212-426-3000, Brooklyn 718-722-3100, Bronx 718-991-4600, Queens 718-286-2450, Staten Island 347-422-5333); Legal Services NYC; Met Council on Housing’s tenant rights hotline at 212-979-0611; Housing Court Answers at 718-557-1379 or 212-962-4795; the NYC 311 Tenant Helpline (via the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, Director Cea Weaver); and the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition. For the law itself, DHCR’s Good Cause Eviction page at hcr.ny.gov, the NY State Attorney General’s Good Cause page at ag.ny.gov, and the Center for Justice Innovation’s “Guide to Good Cause Eviction Law in NYC” are the three authoritative starting points.

What this section deliberately does not do: walk you through how to file your answer or argue an affirmative defense in Housing Court without counsel. Legal-aid sites publish that pro se guidance for tenants in active proceedings. An SEO explainer cannot substitute for a tenant attorney, and pretending otherwise gets people evicted.

Read Next

• NYC Housing Guide. The parent pillar. The seven-regime decision tree routes every NYC renter to the regulatory frame that actually applies to them.
• How Rent Stabilization Works in NYC. The sibling spoke. The stronger regime that covers the roughly 1 million stabilized units Good Cause explicitly does not.
• NY State Budget 2026: What It Means for NYC. State-level housing-policy money flow, including the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) and the structural Albany decisions that move tenant protections.
• Mamdani’s NYC Insurance Plan. The related housing-policy intervention from the new administration, structured to neutralize the operating-cost argument landlords use to push for higher RGB and Good Cause increases.

Sources

• New York State Real Property Law Article 6-A (sections 210 through 218): primary statutory citation; Good Cause Eviction Law as enacted; small landlord definition (section 211); applicability in NYC (section 212); opt-in for non-NYC municipalities (section 213); covered housing accommodations and exemption list (section 214); necessity for good cause (section 215); enumerated grounds for removal (section 216); preservation of existing requirements (section 217); waiver void (section 218). nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/RPP/A6-A.
• Part HH of Chapter 56 of the Laws of 2024: enacting vehicle, signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on April 20, 2024 as part of the FY25 NY State Budget.
• NYS Homes and Community Renewal / DHCR: Good Cause Eviction notice (February 19, 2025), setting CPI at 3.79 percent and the 2026 local rent standard at 8.79 percent; 245% FMR thresholds effective May 1, 2025 for Manhattan (studio $5,471, 1BR $5,709, 2BR $6,321, 3BR $7,877, 4BR $8,499). hcr.ny.gov/good-cause-eviction.
• Real Property Law section 226-c: non-renewal notice requirements (30, 60, or 90 days). nysenate.gov.
• Real Property Law section 231-c: required notice of Good Cause applicability or inapplicability. NYS Courts fillable form GoodCauseEvictionLawNotice.
• NYS Attorney General Letitia James: consumer-facing Good Cause Eviction explainer. ag.ny.gov/publications/new-york-state-good-cause-eviction-law.
• NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD): NYC-side Good Cause information. nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/good-cause-eviction.page.
• NYC Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants (MOPT), Director Cea Weaver: 311 Tenant Helpline; citywide tenant-protection coordination. nyc.gov/content/tenantprotection.
• NYC Comptroller: “Evictions Up, Representation Down” report; Right to Counsel representation data (71 percent FY21; 42 percent FY24; 30 percent citywide low in March 2025; Bronx 88 percent to 31 percent). comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/evictions-up-representation-down.
• NYC Independent Budget Office (IBO), September 2025: “The Expansion of New York City’s Right to Counsel Program.” Eligible-case growth from 15,675 (2019) to 50,487 (2024), 222 percent; program spending growth of 129 percent; 89 percent stable-housing outcome for fully represented tenants. ibo.nyc.gov.
• NYC Civil Court Directory: Housing Court venues: 111 Centre Street (Manhattan); 141 Livingston Street (Brooklyn); 89-17 Sutphin Boulevard (Queens); 1118 Grand Concourse (Bronx); 927 Castleton Avenue (Staten Island). ww2.nycourts.gov/courts/nyc/housing/addresses.shtml.
• Sin Hang Lau v. Yun He Zheng: Kings County Civil Court, January 2, 2025; 2025 NY Slip Op 25001; pleading-requirement effective date.
• Emerald Green Phase II L.P. v. Rivera: Kings County Civil Court (J. Cohen), June 5, 2025; 2025 NY Slip Op 50916(U); section 214(5) exemption pleading.
• 3515 Eastchester Rd., LLC v. Soto: Bronx County Civil Court, September 16, 2025; 2025 NY Slip Op 25209; predicate-notice dismissal under section 211(3) small-landlord claim.
• Center for Justice Innovation: “A Guide to Good Cause Eviction Law in NYC” (with Center for Urban Pedagogy, Housing Court Answers, TakeRoot Justice). innovatingjustice.org/resources/good-cause-nyc.
• Community Service Society of New York (CSS NY): Good Cause resources and policy analysis. cssny.org.
• Housing Justice for All: Know Your Rights Good Cause guide. housingjusticeforall.org/kyr-good-cause.
• Legal Aid Society: Good Cause explainer; borough housing unit phone numbers. legalaidnyc.org.
• Legal Services NYC: Good Cause explainer. legalservicesnyc.org.
• Met Council on Housing: tenant rights hotline (212-979-0611). metcouncilonhousing.org/program/tenants-rights-hotline.
• Housing Court Answers: Housing Court navigation; 718-557-1379 or 212-962-4795. housingcourtanswers.org.
• NY State Senator Julia Salazar press release, June 2025: “1+ Year Later, Good Cause Eviction Adopted by 17 NY Municipalities & Protects One Million Renters.” Opt-in count and statewide coverage estimate. nysenate.gov.
• BBG LLP, April 2025: analysis of DHCR’s February 19, 2025 notice and the May 1, 2025 245% FMR Manhattan figures.

Last updated: June 5, 2026. The cap math (CPI plus 5 percent = 8.79 percent for 2026) and the 245% FMR thresholds recalibrate annually: DHCR is required to publish updated figures by August 1 each year, effective the following May 1. The next confirmed update triggers are the August 1, 2026 DHCR notice, any First Department or Second Department Appellate Division merits ruling on Good Cause, any amendment to Article 6-A in an Albany budget, and the June 15, 2034 statutory sunset. The structural sections (the three-test coverage check architecture, the section 216 enumerated grounds, the Housing Court venue map, the rent-stabilization boundary) age slowly. For the operating constitution behind every claim on this page, see About NYC Daily TL;DR; for the editorial methodology that produces the daily briefing, see How we curate.