Latest Developments from Housing Court
In the past few days we have seen a thaw in the freeze on housing court due to COVID-19; however, it is clear that a full opening will be a long time coming.
In the Bronx on Monday June 15, 2020, Bronx Housing Court Supervising Judge Miriam Breier held a tour of the court and discussed with the bar the coming changes to practice in NYC Housing Court. Later that same day, Supervising Judges Jean Schneider, City-wide Supervising Judge of the NYC Housing Courts, and Anne Katz, Supervising Judge of New York County Housing Court, held a Zoom meeting with the bar to discuss the same.
These events were prompted by the modification of the stay of all eviction and foreclosure proceedings under the Governor’s Executive Order 202.8 by his subsequent order 202.28 and the modified directives from Judge Anthony Cannataro, the Administrative Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York which were issued on June 12, 2020.
Governor Cuomo's blanket eviction moratorium under EO 202.8 is set to expire on June 20, 2020 at which point EO 202.28 takes over which modifies the stay through Aug. 20, 2020 to only prohibiting new eviction cases against commercial and residential tenants who receive government assistance or are "otherwise facing financial hardship" because of COVID-19.
Supervising Judge Cannataro’s modified court directives require that petitioners looking to file new nonpayment cases, or enforce a default judgment or warrant of eviction in an existing non-payment case, must first submit an affidavit from "a person with personal knowledge of the facts" stating they've made a "good-faith effort" to determine if a tenant qualifies for an exemption (DRP 209, DRP 210, and DRP 211).
As landlords may proceed with certain non-payment cases and the modified stay is silent as to any stay on holdover proceedings, both NY and Bronx courts announced Monday, effective June 22, 2020, owners will be permitted, upon the expiration of the appropriate notices (Rent Demands, Notice To Cure, Notice of Termination, etc.) to file new eviction proceedings for non-payment which meeting the above requirements and all holdover proceedings in the New York City Civil Court.
However the Judges said to be prepared for many changes. As there is currently no electronic filing system in city housing courts, while attorneys will be able to file eviction cases in person, only five or fewer people will be able to wait at the clerks' counter at any given time and all others will be required to wait outside the courthouse until room becomes available. This will obviously result in long lines in filing.
Judge Schneider said the courts will send out postcards to respondents with a phone number to call to schedule their first virtual appearance which she surmised will not be until the second phase of reopening. If tenants show up in person, there will be clerks stationed outside the courthouse issuing flyers with instructions on how to "avoid standing in line."
Meanwhile, Judge Breier stated that the courts are considering modifying the notice of petition for non-payment cases to bring them in line with those outside the City of New York in which the proceeding is noticed for a date certain instead of requiring the tenant to go to court to file an answer in person to obtain a court date. There was further discussion of returning to the old Part 18 system where cases would initially be returnable to a general assignment part, would be adjourned for respondents to obtain assigned counsel and then upon the return date the case would be assigned to a settlement part. Notably, these modifications were not discussed by Judge Schneider which seems to indicate they are far from decided.
Both Judges made it clear that there would be no default judgments issued against non-appearing tenants for the foreseeable future.
Keep in mind that while certain cases may now be filed, Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks’ Administrative Order 68/20 issued on March 16, 2020 states that "all eviction proceedings and pending eviction orders shall be suspended statewide ... until further notice." This order was cited by the NYC Department of Investigations letter of June 15, 2020 reminding NYC Marshals that although courts were open, there still were no evictions. The letter went on to state that all Notices of Eviction served prior the moratorium are now stale and finally that under Supervising Judge Cannataro’s DRP 211, the notices could not be reserved until the petitioner has received leave of court. The issue is that this letter from DOI does not distinguish between warrants issued in holdovers as opposed non-payment proceedings and DRP 211 clearly only applies only to warrants issued in non-payment proceedings prior to March 16, 2020.
So while there has been progress in reopening, there is no timeline on in person proceedings, there are discrepancies with court issued directives and DOI on Notice of Evictions, no default judgments and certainly no evictions as of yet due to AO 68/20. Clearly, we have long way to go.
Stay well and stay tuned…
