Supreme Court sides with landlords, striking down part of New York's eviction ban

Morgan Keith
Updated ·2 min read
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  • One of the two laws the New York Legislature passed regulating pandemic evictions was struck down.

  • The majority of the court found that one of the laws violated landlords' right to due process.

  • Because the landlords did not challenge the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, it remains in place.

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In a 6-3 decision on August 12, the Supreme Court ruled that the rights of five New York landlords and one landlords' association were violated by the state's eviction moratorium, which resulted in one of the laws provisions being struck down.

During the pandemic, the New York Legislature passed two laws regulating evictions: the Tenant Safe Harbor Act (THSA) and the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 (CEEFPA). The court blocked the latter, which barred the eviction of any tenant who filed a financial hardship declaration with their landlord, because it violated the landlords' right to due process, according to the order.

"While I respect the US Supreme Court as a separate judicial entity, I am deeply disappointed in the injunction issued yesterday that invalidates eviction protections for hundreds of thousands of tenants and denies New Yorkers this still necessary public health measure," state Sen. Brian Kavanagh, who authored CEEFPA, said in a press release.

Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Stephen Breyer, who authored the dissenting opinion, cited several reasons they wished to keep CEEFPA in place, including the fact that the state is still distributing federal aid to landlords that would alleviate the need for evictions.

Although the order left TSHA intact, all protections under the New York eviction moratorium are set to expire on August 31. Only 55 New York households received financial assistance by the end of July and the state still has $2.35 billion in federal funds and $100 million in state funds left to distribute, according to a press release from state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi.

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