L.L. 2015/081

Enactment date: 9/3/2015

Int. No. 682-A

By Council Members Garodnick, Williams, Chin, Constantinides, Gibson, King, Koslowitz, Lancman, Levin, Richards, Rose, Rosenthal, Van Bramer, Cohen, Cumbo, Barron, Kallos, Mendez, Rodriguez and Wills

A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to conduct in connection with offers to induce a person to vacate a dwelling unit

Be it enacted by the Council as follows:

Section 1. Declaration of legislative intent and findings.

   a.   The council finds and declares that:

      1.   Although there are legitimate reasons for building owners to offer tenants money or other valuable consideration to vacate their apartments, in recent years, and due in part to rapidly increasing rents, some owners have engaged in abusive and intimidating behaviors to coerce such tenants into accepting these buyout offers and leaving their homes; and

      2.   The rights of building owners to make these buyout offers must be balanced with the rights of tenants to negotiate or refuse such offers and to be free of harassment.

   b.   As a result, it is necessary and appropriate to place reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the making of these buyout offers in order to protect tenants from harassment while still allowing owners and tenants to engage in negotiations over such offers.

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[Consolidated provisions are not included in this Appendix A]

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§ 3. This local law takes effect on the same date as a local law of the city of New York for the year 2015 amending the administrative code of the city of New York relating to amending the definition of harassment to include certain buyout offers, as proposed in introduction number 757-A, takes effect.