Free New York City Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable New York City residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built on verified New York State law and then on the part a statewide form never reaches — the Housing Maintenance Code, the Rent Stabilization Law and Code, the FARE Act and the Rules of the City of New York.

New York City Admin. Code Tit. 27 Ch. 2 Coverage-Tested Free PDF 2026 Edition

A New York City residential lease agreement is a New York State lease with a second body of law stacked on top of it, and almost all of that second body lives somewhere a statewide template never looks: the Administrative Code of the City of New York and the Rules of the City of New York. The State layer — the one-month deposit cap, the fourteen-day accounting, the fee ceilings, the thirty, sixty and ninety day notice scale, the statewide Good Cause notice — is set out in full on our statewide New York lease agreement page, and this page does not repeat it or contradict it. What this page does is the part that is genuinely different in the five boroughs, and the single thing that makes it hard: almost every New York City duty has a coverage test. Is the building a multiple dwelling or a one- or two-family house? Was it erected before 1960, between 1960 and 1978, before 1974, before 1947? Is the unit rent stabilized, rent controlled or free market? A rule stated without its test is not a rule — and stating city rules without their tests is exactly what every page currently ranking for this search does.

Complete the fields below to generate a New York City residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. The form asks the coverage questions first — building class, build date, regulatory status — and the generated lease then branches on the answers, printing the test beside each duty rather than asserting a rule that may not bind your building. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening, and read New York tenant screening laws first: Real Property Law 227-f makes it unlawful to refuse an applicant over a past or pending housing court case, and Administrative Code 8-107 makes a lawful source of income a protected class in the five boroughs. Pair the signed lease with a New York move-in / move-out checklist, because the fourteen-day deposit accounting you owe at the end rests entirely on documented condition at the start.

The short answer: the State tells you what you may charge and how much notice you must give; New York City tells you what the building must be, what the lease must contain, and whether you may go to court at all. The State layer reaches every county alike, and we set it out in full on the configurable New York State lease form. Inside the city line, four further bodies of law attach to the same tenancy. The Housing Maintenance Code, Administrative Code title 27 chapter 2, sets the physical standards and most of the notices that must live inside the lease itself. The Rent Stabilization Law, Administrative Code chapter 4 of title 26, together with the Rent Stabilization Code at 9 NYCRR parts 2520 to 2530, governs roughly a million apartments and dictates the lease term, the renewal, the rent adjustment and the rider. The City Rent and Rehabilitation Law, chapter 3 of title 26, governs a much smaller and much older set. And the Rules of the City of New York carry the operational detail — the window guard notice, the lead notice form, the annual infestation filing — which is precisely where a template built from statutes alone goes blind.

That last point is worth pausing on, because it is the structural reason the pages currently ranking for this search are thin. They are New York State template pages that mention a handful of city sections in passing. Only one of the eleven pages measured in our teardown draws any line at all between a statewide duty and a city duty. None carries the FARE Act. None carries the registration bar in Administrative Code 27-2107(b). None carries the gas leak notice that must be delivered with the lease. None knows that the window guard rules were replaced on 1 January 2026. Two of them cite Administrative Code 27-2046.4 for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, which is the section about stove knob covers.

This is the first question a New York City lease has to answer, and the lease itself has no power to answer it — the unit is what the statutes make it. Getting it wrong is not a drafting slip; it decides the deposit rule, the term, the renewal right, the permissible rent adjustment and what the lease may lawfully contain.

Rent stabilization. Administrative Code 26-504 applies the Rent Stabilization Law to class A multiple dwellings not owned as a cooperative or as a condominium containing six or more dwelling units which were completed after 1 February 1947, subject to seven lettered exceptions the section itself lists — among them a certificate of occupancy obtained after 10 March 1969, a unit not occupied by the tenant as a primary residence, and a unit that became vacant on or after 30 June 1971. It also reaches units decontrolled by the city rent agency under 26-414, and units exempt from control under specified items of 26-403(e). Subdivision (b) then brings in other accommodations made subject by the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 — and that is where the familiar “built before 1 January 1974” line comes from. The date is a State act, not the City code, which is exactly why you will not find it in 26-504 and why so many summaries state the test as though the whole thing were one rule.

Subdivision (c) adds a category that has nothing to do with size or age at all: a unit in a building receiving the benefits of Administrative Code section 11-243 or section 11-244, or of article eighteen of the Private Housing Finance Law, not owned as a cooperative or condominium, is stabilized for the life of the benefit. The deregulation route on expiry is narrow: the unit stays stabilized until the first vacancy after the benefits end unless every lease and renewal for the sitting tenant carried a notice in at least twelve point type that the unit would be deregulated on expiry, stating the approximate date. Note what 26-504(c) does not say — it does not use the programme nicknames that circulate in template summaries, and this page does not attribute them to it.

Two deregulation routes that no longer exist. Administrative Code 26-504.1 (high income rent deregulation) and 26-504.2 (high rent deregulation) were repealed by chapter 36 of the Laws of 2019, Part D section 5, and each now reads [Repealed] in its own title; 26-403.1 and 26-403.2 went the same way on the rent control side. There is no rent threshold at which a stabilized New York City apartment leaves regulation, and any template that describes one is describing law repealed seven years ago.

Rent control is a different and much narrower animal, and the honest way to state its coverage is through the code’s own two exclusions rather than the usual shorthand. In the definition of “housing accommodation” at Administrative Code 26-403(e)(2), item (h) takes out of control any accommodation completed on or after 1 February 1947; item (i)(9) takes out any accommodation that became vacant on or after 30 June 1971 — unless the agency finds it became vacant because the landlord engaged in a course of conduct intended to disturb the tenant — while expressly preserving the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974 for such units, which is the mechanism that turns a decontrolled unit into a stabilized one. Item (i)(10) removes a unit that is not the tenant’s primary residence. The practical result is the familiar one: a pre-1947 building continuously occupied by the same tenant or a lawful successor since before mid-1971. The code does not say it in those words, and a “three or more units” element does not appear in the sections read for this page, so this page does not assert one.

Free market means neither of the above. It does not mean the city layer falls away. Every New York City duty on this page that turns on the building rather than on the rent — lead, window guards, infestation history, indoor allergens, stove knobs, detectors, the gas leak notice, registration, the smoking policy and the FARE Act — binds a free-market unit exactly as it binds a regulated one. What falls away is the rider, the renewal right and the Rent Guidelines Board.

A rent-stabilized lease that is missing its rider does not merely look irregular — the owner cannot collect the increase. That is the sanction most templates omit, and it is the one that costs money.

Under 9 NYCRR 2522.5(c)(1) the owner must furnish, to each tenant signing a vacancy or a renewal lease, a rider in a form promulgated or approved by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, in larger type than the lease, describing the rights and duties of owners and tenants under the Rent Stabilization Law and giving a detailed description, in the format the Division prescribes, of how the rent was adjusted from the prior legal rent. The rider is attached as an addendum, and on the face of each lease, in bold print, must appear: ATTACHED RIDER SETS FORTH RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF TENANTS AND LANDLORDS UNDER THE RENT STABILIZATION LAW. For a vacancy lease the rider must additionally state the prior legal regulated rent, explain how the new rent was computed against the most recent annual registration statement and the prior lease, and state that any increase above the registered amount accords with the adjustments the Rent Guidelines Board and the Code permit.

Then the two provisions that give it teeth. Under 2522.5(c)(1)(ii) the tenant may, within sixty days of executing the lease, require the owner to provide the supporting documentation directly, and the owner has thirty days to do so. And under 2522.5(c)(3), where the rider or the documentation is not furnished, the owner is not entitled to collect any adjustment in excess of the rent set forth in the prior lease unless the owner can establish that the rent collected was otherwise legal. Furnishing it later ends the penalty prospectively, but not retrospectively. If you need the rider itself, we publish a fillable New York City rent stabilized rider.

Three further requirements sit alongside it. Under 2522.5(a)(1), on renting a vacant stabilized unit the owner must give the tenant a copy of the fully executed lease for a one- or two-year term at the tenant’s option, bearing both signatures and the start and end dates, within thirty days of receiving the lease the tenant signed, and it must conform to the plain-English requirement of General Obligations Law 5-702. The tenant’s one-year option is unavailable in only two situations: where a mortgage or mortgage commitment existing as of 1 April 1969 prohibits one-year terms, and where the tenant holds a Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption under Administrative Code 26-509. Under 2522.5(b)(2), if the Division orders a missing executed copy furnished and the owner does not comply within twenty days, all rent guideline increases for vacancy or renewal leases are denied until it is.

Finally, there are things a stabilized lease may not contain. Under 2522.5(e)(1) no vacancy or renewal lease commencing on or after 1 April 1984 may provide for an escalator clause, save one another statute or regulation requires or the narrow tax-benefit clauses in (e)(2) and (e)(3) permit — each of which needs its own tenant-endorsed rider stating the approximate expiry of the benefits. And under 2522.5(d) a stabilized lease may provide for adjustment of the legal regulated rent in only four ways: a guidelines rate not yet fixed at execution, an increase the Division orders, a pending hardship application under 2522.4(c) or (d), or a pending vacancy-lease adjustment application recited in the lease itself.

It is not a figure in a statute and it is not negotiable in the lease. It is set once a year by a board, and the figure that governs is the one in force for the date your lease commences. That is why this page gives you the mechanism first and the current number second, and why the generated lease carries the mechanism rather than a percentage that would go stale in the drawer.

Administrative Code 26-510(a) constitutes the New York City Rent Guidelines Board: nine members appointed by the Mayor, two representing tenants, two representing owners, and five public members each of whom must have at least five years’ experience in finance, economics or housing, with one public member designated chair. Subdivision (b) sets the machinery. The Board must consider, among other things, the economic condition of the residential real estate industry — real estate taxes and sewer and water rates, gross operating and maintenance costs including insurance, governmental fees, fuel and labour, the cost and availability of financing, the overall supply of housing and overall vacancy rates — together with current and projected cost-of-living indices. Not later than 1 July of each year it must file its findings with the City Clerk together with a statement of the maximum rate or rates of adjustment authorised for leases commencing on the next succeeding 1 October or within the twelve months thereafter, published in the City Record. The same subdivision forbids the Board to set guidelines based on a unit’s current rent or on the amount of time elapsed since another increase was authorised.

Current at verification. Apartment and Loft Order 58, adopted 25 June 2026, sets zero per cent for a one-year renewal and zero per cent for a two-year renewal, for leases commencing on or after 1 October 2026 and on or before 30 September 2027. That figure is correct for that guideline year and for no other. Check the Board’s own published order for the year in which your lease begins — a page printing last year’s figure as “the New York City rent increase” is wrong by a whole order, and several are. If you need to serve an increase, see our New York City rent increase notice.

Registration and its fee are a mechanism too. A stabilized unit must be registered annually with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal under Administrative Code 26-517, and 26-517.1(a) directs the Department of Finance to collect from the owner an annual fee of twenty dollars per year for each unit subject to the Rent Stabilization Law, to defray the costs the City incurs under subdivision c of section eight of the Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974. Non-payment becomes a debt and then a lien on the premises with priority over all liens except taxes and assessments, after a written demand and a second notice thirty days later — and 26-517.1(b)(6) makes that the sole remedy. The figure has stood since 1 April 1984 by force of subdivision (c), which is why it is safe to print with its authority beside it.

Yes, and the choice between a one-year and a two-year term is the tenant’s, not the owner’s. Administrative Code 26-511(c)(4) requires the Rent Stabilization Code to include provisions compelling owners to grant a one- or two-year vacancy or renewal lease at the tenant’s option — except where a mortgage or mortgage commitment existing as of 1 April 1969 provides that the mortgagor shall not grant a one-year lease.

The machinery is 9 NYCRR 2523.5(a). On a form prescribed or approved by the Division, dated by the owner, every owner other than an owner of hotel accommodations must notify the tenant named in the expiring lease not more than one hundred and fifty days and not less than ninety days before the end of the term, by mail or personal delivery, of the expiration, and offer to renew at the legal regulated rent permitted for such renewal lease and otherwise on the same terms and conditions as the expiring lease. The tenant then has sixty days from service to accept, entering the acceptance on the designated part of the form and returning it.

Then the sanction almost nobody states: the owner must furnish a copy of the fully executed renewal lease form within thirty days of receiving the form the tenant signed, and on failing to do so is barred from commencing any action or proceeding against the tenant based upon non-renewal of the lease, under 2523.5(a) reading with 2524.3(f). A missed thirty-day return does not merely delay the increase; it removes the ground. We publish a fillable rent stabilized lease renewal offer and a general New York City lease renewal offer.

Rent control is not a stricter version of rent stabilization; it is a separate statute with separate machinery, and the two are routinely merged. The rent is not a guidelines adjustment but a Maximum Base Rent and Maximum Collectible Rent administered by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal. Administrative Code 26-405(a)(5) then caps what may actually be collected from a tenant in occupancy: where a maximum rent established on or after 1 January 1972 is higher than the previously existing maximum rent, the landlord may not collect from a tenant in occupancy, in any one-year period, more than the lesser of seven and one-half per cent or the average of the previous five years of one-year rent adjustments on rent stabilized apartments as established by the Rent Guidelines Board. So the Board’s number reaches controlled units too — indirectly, as one half of a comparison.

Removal is governed by Administrative Code 26-408, not by the Rent Stabilization Code. So long as the tenant pays the rent to which the landlord is entitled, the tenant may not be removed — notwithstanding any contract, lease or expired term — except on one of the listed grounds or with a certificate of eviction. The listed grounds include violating a substantial obligation of the tenancy and failing to cure within ten days of written notice; committing or permitting a nuisance, or maliciously or by gross negligence substantially damaging the accommodation, or conduct substantially interfering with the comfort and safety of the landlord or other occupants; illegal occupancy for which the landlord faces penalties; and use for an immoral or illegal purpose.

And here is the point most templates get backwards. It is often said that a rent-controlled unit has “no lease and no renewal machinery”. Administrative Code 26-408(a)(5) says the opposite, from the other direction: a controlled tenant whose written lease terminated on or after 1 May 1950 and who, on the landlord’s demand, refuses to execute a written extension or renewal for a further term of like duration not exceeding one year, otherwise on the same terms and conditions so far as they are consistent with the chapter, gives the landlord a ground for removal. The renewal obligation exists in rent control — it simply binds the tenant rather than creating a tenant option.

Two consequences for the paperwork. A controlled unit sits outside General Obligations Law 7-108(1-a), which excludes a unit subject to the city rent and rehabilitation law by name, so the statewide one-month cap in that subdivision is not the source of the rule for a controlled deposit; the trust-fund duties in 7-103 still apply and General Obligations Law 7-107 governs. And a controlled unit is outside the 9 NYCRR 2522.5 rider duty entirely, because that is a Rent Stabilization Code rule.

Both, repeatedly, and with different thresholds in different statutes — which is why a single “small building?” checkbox cannot carry a New York City lease. Here is the grid this page is built on, each threshold taken from the section that sets it.

• Multiple dwelling versus one- or two-family house. Administrative Code 27-2005(a) and (b) put the whole Housing Maintenance Code on the owner of a multiple dwelling. Subdivision (c) lets the owner of a one- or two-family dwelling shift that compliance to the tenant by written lease or contract. That is a real coverage difference and it is created by the lease itself.
• Six or more dwelling units. The rent stabilization test in Administrative Code 26-504(a). Separately, General Obligations Law 7-103 requires an interest-bearing deposit account in a building of six or more family dwelling units — but 9 NYCRR 2525.4 requires one for every rent-stabilized unit with no size threshold at all.
• Five or fewer versus more than five units. The registration penalty scale in Administrative Code 27-2107(a), and the immediately-hazardous civil penalty scale in 27-2115(a)(3).
• Erected before 1 January 1960. Local Law 1 of 2004 applies wherever a child of applicable age resides, with no actual-knowledge requirement, and the January annual notice cycle in 27-2056.4(e) applies. 24 RCNY 12-03(c) also lets a pre-1960 owner combine the window guard and lead notices on one approved form.
• Erected on or after 1 January 1960 and before 1 January 1978. Local Law 1 applies only where a child of applicable age resides and the owner has actual knowledge of lead-based paint.
• Built before 1978. The federal lead-based paint disclosure under 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 24 C.F.R. part 35, which is the floor beneath the city regime and not a substitute for it.
• Completed before 1 February 1947. The rent control boundary in Administrative Code 26-403(e)(2)(h).
• Three or fewer rental units. The State certificate of occupancy disclosure in Real Property Law 235-bb, which in the boroughs reaches the small brownstone owner and not the six-unit walk-up.
• Not more than two families, owner-occupied, not advertised. The exemption from the source-of-income and other housing protections in Administrative Code 8-107(5)(a)(4).

Two separate things, in the same document, and the second one is also the landlord’s own signed certificate — which no template treats it as. Local Law 1 of 2004 is codified at Administrative Code 27-2056.1 to 27-2056.18 and it is far heavier than the federal disclosure it sits on top of.

Coverage first. Administrative Code 27-2056.4(a) reaches a dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling erected before 1 January 1960 where a child of applicable age resides; a dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling erected on or after 1 January 1960 and before 1 January 1978 where a child of applicable age resides and the owner has actual knowledge of lead-based paint; and the common areas of such buildings. “Resides” is defined at 27-2056.2(12) as routinely spending ten or more hours a week in the unit — so a grandchild who visits every weekend can bring a unit inside the article. Administrative Code 27-2056.15(c) takes the whole article, except 27-2056.14, off a cooperative or condominium unit occupied by the shareholder of record or the record owner or their family.

The lease notice. Under 27-2056.4(c), all leases offered to tenants or prospective tenants in such multiple dwellings must contain a notice, conspicuously set forth therein, advising tenants of the obligations of owner and tenant under the section, in a manner approved by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and at minimum in English and Spanish — and the owner must give the occupant the pamphlet described in Administrative Code 17-179(b).

The child-inquiry rider. Under 27-2056.4(d)(1), at the signing of a lease including a renewal lease, or on any agreement to lease, or at the commencement of occupancy where there is no lease, the owner must give a notice in English and Spanish on a form approved by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene asking whether a child of applicable age resides or will reside there. Where there is a lease, that notice must be included in the lease or attached as a rider, and must be completed by the occupant at signing. If the occupant answers “no”, 27-2056.4(d)(2) puts a continuing duty on the occupant to tell the owner if a child of applicable age arrives before the next annual notice — and a failure to do so removes the 27-2056.5 presumption in a personal-injury action.

The Department’s rule adds what the statute does not. Under 28 RCNY 11-03(a)(1) the notice is the prescribed form at Appendix A to 28 RCNY chapter 11, titled Prevention of Lead-based Paint Hazards – Inquiry Regarding Child, printed in not less than ten point type, issued in duplicate with one copy returned to the owner, kept for ten years and transferred to a successor in title. And the same rule requires the lease-signing notice to contain a statement, signed by the owner, that the owner has complied with the turnover requirements of Administrative Code 27-2056.8 and 28 RCNY 11-05 and has delivered the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene pamphlet. The child inquiry is therefore not only a question put to the tenant — it is the owner’s own signed turnover certification, and signing it while the turnover work is undone is a very different kind of exposure. We publish a fillable New York lead paint disclosure for the federal layer.

The annual cycle. Under 27-2056.4(e), each year an owner of a multiple dwelling erected before 1 January 1960 must present the same inquiry no earlier than 1 January and no later than 16 January, by first class mail, by hand delivery, by enclosure with a January rent bill delivered between 15 December and 16 January, or together with the annual window guard notice under Administrative Code 17-123. The occupant must deliver a written response by 15 February. If none arrives and the owner has no actual knowledge, the owner must inspect at a reasonable time on reasonable notice; and where the owner has made reasonable attempts between 16 February and 1 March and could not gain access, the owner must notify the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Investigation results go to the occupant in writing with a copy of any report under 27-2056.4(f), are kept ten years and transfer with title.

The penalty. Under 27-2056.4(g) a violation is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to five hundred dollars or up to six months’ imprisonment or both, plus a civil penalty of up to one thousand five hundred dollars per violation. And under 27-2056.15(a) no owner may seek to have an occupant waive the benefit or protection of any provision of the article; any such agreement is void, seeking it is itself a misdemeanor, and it carries a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars per violation.

The turnover duty is separate from the notice duty, it is expensive, and it is the one that produces class C violations. Administrative Code 27-2056.8(a) requires the owner, on the earliest of turnover of a unit in a covered multiple dwelling, by 1 July 2027 for a unit where a child of applicable age resided as of 1 January 2025, or within three years after a child of applicable age begins to reside in an occupied unit before turnover, to remediate all lead-based paint hazards and any underlying defects; make all bare floors, window sills and window wells smooth and cleanable; remove or permanently cover all lead-based paint on the friction surfaces of doors and door frames; and remove or permanently cover lead-based paint on window friction surfaces or install replacement window channels or slides. Failure is a class C immediately hazardous violation.

Separately, Administrative Code 27-2056.4(a-1) requires one investigation for the presence of lead-based paint to be carried out by a person who is not the owner, the owner’s agent or any remediation contractor and who is certified as an inspector or risk assessor under 40 C.F.R. 745.226, using an x-ray fluorescence analyser on all types of surfaces including chewable, friction and impact surfaces, in the unit and the common areas — by the earliest of 9 August 2025, one year after a child of applicable age comes to reside, or the date a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene order fixes. The investigation is not required if a compliant one was already done and the records retained, or if the unit has an exemption from the presumption under 27-2056.5(b). Under 27-2056.17 the owner must keep, for every unit, the turnover date, the name of each inspector or contractor, all testing results, and whether an exemption was granted — and transfer them to a successor in title.

Yes — in every new lease in a multiple dwelling, whether or not a child lives there, and under rules that were replaced on 1 January 2026. This is the freshest gap on the whole search results page: every published description of the New York City window guard notice we could find predates the rules now in force.

The installation duty. Administrative Code 27-2043.1(a) requires an owner of a multiple dwelling, and an owner of a dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling owned as a condominium, to provide, install and maintain a window guard to Department of Health and Mental Hygiene specification on each window of each dwelling unit in which a child ten years of age or under resides, and on the windows of the public areas of a multiple dwelling in which such a child resides. Subdivision (b) excepts a window giving access to a fire escape and a first-floor window that is a required means of egress. Subdivision (d) is the one owners forget: no owner may refuse a tenant’s written request for guards, regardless of whether a child resides there. Failure is a class C immediately hazardous violation with twenty-one days to correct under subdivision (e), and under subdivision (f) the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is the sole city agency authorised to seek a monetary penalty for it. New York City Health Code 131.15 carries the same duty at the same age and, at subdivision (d), declares a failure a nuisance and a condition dangerous to life and health under Administrative Code 17-145.

Note the age. It is ten years of age and under, in both the Administrative Code and the Health Code. Several ranking pages give it as six, or as “young children”. Six is the age in a completely different city rule — the stove knob duty at Administrative Code 27-2046.4 — and the two are routinely merged.

The notice duty, as replaced. An editor’s note on the face of the chapter records that “Chapter 12 was repealed and replaced by City Record 7/23/2025, eff. 1/1/2026.” Under the new 24 RCNY 12-03, titled Distribution of Window Guard and Lead Paint Notices, owners must deliver a notice in a form provided or approved by the Department to the occupant of each dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling, distributed as follows: all new leases offered to prospective or current tenants must contain a notice regarding window guards; where no lease is offered or required, the notice goes to each new occupant at commencement of occupancy; and between 1 January and 16 January of each year the owner must send an annual notice by first class mail, hand delivery, electronic delivery only where the occupant has given written consent, or enclosure with a January rent bill delivered between 15 December and 16 January.

Subdivision (b) adds an annual notice reminder: between 1 January and 15 February each year the owner must transmit a reminder by any practical means, including electronic messaging or posting in common areas, advising occupants that completed notices are due by 15 February, that the owner must inspect if the notice is not returned, and that the owner must install and maintain guards. Subdivision (d) requires notices in English, Spanish and any other language the owner knows or reasonably should know is commonly spoken in the community, and forbids the wording and form of a Department notice to be altered or varied in any manner except by a modification granted under 24 RCNY 12-12. Subdivision (e) requires proof of mailing or delivery, the returned forms and any consent to electronic delivery to be kept until at least 1 April of the second year following the notice year — and provides that failure to make proof available within five business days of a written or oral request is prima facie evidence that the notice was not provided.

Two more. Under 24 RCNY 12-04, if no completed notice arrives by 15 February the owner must inspect the unit at a reasonable time to establish whether a child resides there and whether guards and air conditioners are properly installed, must annually inspect any permanently installed ornamental or security window bars intended to serve as guards, and must keep records of any refusal of access for at least two years. Under 24 RCNY 12-05 an owner must impose no pre-condition on installation, including any pre-payment of fees, and must not tell an occupant that installation is optional where a child resides. And under 12-03(c), owners of multiple dwellings constructed before 1 January 1960 may combine the window guard notice with the lead notice required by 28 RCNY 11-03 on a Department-approved form. We publish a standalone fillable New York City window guard notice.

Three duties, not one, and every template in the search results carries only the first.

One — the vacancy-lease history notice. Administrative Code 27-2018.1(a) provides that, for housing accommodations subject to the Housing Maintenance Code, an owner shall furnish to each tenant signing a vacancy lease a notice, on a form promulgated or approved by the State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, setting out the property’s infestation history for the previous year for both the premises rented and the building in which they sit. Under subdivision (b), on a tenant’s written complaint that the notice was not furnished, the Division shall order the owner to furnish it.

Two — the renewal-lease distribution added in 2017. Subdivision (c), added by Local Law 69 of 2017, requires an owner of a multiple dwelling either to provide each tenant, upon commencement of a new lease and with each renewal lease, or to post in a prominent public location in the building, two things: a copy of the most recent electronic form submitted under 27-2018.2, and a notice from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about the prevention, detection and removal of infestations. This is the half that ranking pages miss, and it is the half that recurs every year.

Three — the annual filing. Administrative Code 27-2018.2(a) requires the owner of a multiple dwelling to report annually to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, on an electronic form, six data points: the street address; the number of dwelling units; the number of units that had an infestation in the previous year; the number in which eradication measures were employed; the number that were re-infested after those measures; and, where the form is given to each tenant, a certification that a copy was distributed to each tenant upon each lease renewal or the commencement of a new lease since the previous filing. If the owner posts rather than distributes, subdivision (b) requires a record that the form was prominently posted within sixty days of filing. Subdivision (d) also requires owners to attempt to obtain the previous year’s history for each unit from the tenant or owner. Under 28 RCNY 59-01 the filing must be electronic unless the owner is registered under 27-2098 as an individual, jointly, or in another non-corporate form and has no email or computer access; a corporate owner’s paper filing is expressly rejected as noncompliant. Since the rule amendment effective 1 February 2026, an owner posting rather than distributing may use a compliant digital sign — but only if the owner also installs digital signs for the smoke detector, carbon monoxide, natural gas, right-of-access, garbage, temperature-reporting and housing information guide notices. It is an all-or-nothing election. We publish a fillable New York City bed bug disclosure.

Do not confuse any of this with the State duty, which is different in kind. Real Property Law 235-j is a notice duty, not a disclosure: on learning of an infestation the landlord must tell the tenants immediately above, below and adjacent within seventy-two hours, without identifying the affected unit. That one applies statewide and is covered on the New York State lease page.

An annual notice, yes — and the section everyone cites for smoke alarms is in fact this one. Administrative Code 27-2046.4 is titled Stovetop protection. Under subdivision (a) an owner of a unit in a multiple dwelling — other than a dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling owned as a condominium or cooperative and used as the primary residence of that owner — must provide the tenant the option of either permanent stove safety knobs with integrated locking mechanisms or stove knob covers for each knob located on the front of each gas-powered stove, in each dwelling unit in which the owner knows or reasonably should know a child under six years of age resides, except where the owner has documented proof that no compatible product exists. Once requested, they must be made available within thirty days.

Subdivision (b)(1) requires an annual notice to each tenant of the owner’s obligation and of the tenant’s option to request. Subdivision (b)(2) makes the tenant’s written request the trigger — if the tenant does not ask in writing, the owner is not obliged to supply. Subdivision (b)(3) requires records of outreach, of written requests received, of attempts to supply, of the units supplied and of the tenants who requested. Subdivision (c) forbids refusing a written request whether or not the section requires compliance. Failure is a class B hazardous violation under subdivision (d), with an exception where the owner has documented proof of incompatibility or has already met two replacement requests in the previous year. The section was added by Local Law 117 of 2018 and amended by Local Law 44 of 2022.

One section governs all three devices, and the three sections most commonly cited for New York City alarms were repealed seven years ago. Administrative Code 27-2046, 27-2046.1 and 27-2046.2 were each repealed by Local Law 157 of 2016 with effect from 1 May 2019, and each now carries [Repealed] in its own title with the repealing act named beneath. The live duty is Administrative Code 27-2045, whose own title runs: Duties of owner and occupant with respect to installation and maintenance of smoke detecting devices, carbon monoxide detecting devices and natural gas detecting devices.

Under 27-2045(b), the owner of a class A multiple dwelling, class B multiple dwelling or private dwelling must provide and install approved and operational smoke detecting devices and carbon monoxide detecting devices in each dwelling unit and — on or before 1 January 2027, under the amendment made by Local Law 102 of 2025 on 30 July 2025 — approved and operational natural gas detecting devices, with a line-operated zoned alternative for class B buildings and a power in the Commissioner of Buildings to extend the natural-gas date by rule after determining how many manufacturers of battery-powered natural gas alarms exist. The owner must replace each device at the end of its useful life under article 312 of title 28; replace any device stolen, removed, found missing or rendered inoperable during a prior occupancy before a new occupancy begins; replace a device that fails within a year through a manufacturing defect within thirty calendar days of written notice; post a notice in a common area setting out who is responsible for what; give at least one adult occupant information on the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning and natural gas leaks, on testing and maintenance, on what to do if a device alerts, on useful life and on each party’s duties; and keep records available to the Commissioner on request. The posted notice and the occupant-information duties do not apply to class B multiple dwellings.

Under 27-2045(c) the occupant must keep each installed device in good repair and replace any device stolen, removed, found missing or rendered inoperable during the occupancy. Under (d) it is unlawful for any person to tamper with or render inoperable a required device except to change batteries or for maintenance. And under (e) the occupant reimburses the owner for a newly installed or replacement battery-operated device up to twenty-five dollars for a single-function device, fifty dollars for a combined two-function device, and seventy-five dollars for a combined smoke, carbon monoxide and natural gas device. Those ceilings belong in the lease, because the reimbursement is exactly the charge a tenant disputes.

With the lease itself — and it appears on no ranking page. Administrative Code 27-2005(f) requires the owner of a dwelling to deliver, or cause to be delivered, to each tenant and prospective tenant, along with the lease or lease renewal form, and to post and maintain in a common area of the building, a notice in a form developed or approved by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development regarding the procedures to be followed when a gas leak is suspected. The notice must instruct tenants to first call 911 and then call the relevant gas service provider — whose name and emergency telephone number must appear on the notice — before contacting the owner or the owner’s agent. It may be combined with other required notices.

The same section carries two more duties worth knowing. Subdivision (e) requires a notice posted prominently at least twenty-four hours before a planned interruption of heat, hot water, cold water, gas or electricity expected to last two or more hours, identifying the service, the work and the expected start and end dates, kept up until the interruption ends and posted in English, Spanish and such other languages as the Department requires; where the interruption is an emergency, the notice goes up as soon as practicable after it begins. And subdivision (g), added by Local Law 1 of 2024 with effect from 3 August 2024, requires the owner of a multiple dwelling to obtain for each dwelling unit, where available, the previous four years of rent amounts from the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, and to provide those rent amounts to the current tenant. That is two years old and it is on no template we could find.

A notice that must be inside the lease, plus a written certification handed to every incoming tenant. The Asthma-Free Housing Act, Local Law 55 of 2018, effective 19 January 2019, is codified at Administrative Code 27-2017.1 to 27-2017.12.

Under 27-2017.2(a) and (b) the owner of a multiple dwelling must cause an investigation to be made for indoor allergen hazards in all occupied dwelling units and in the common areas, at least once a year and more often where the owner knows or should know of a condition reasonably foreseeable to cause one, where an occupant complains or requests an inspection, or where the Department issues a notice of violation. Under 27-2017.2(c), all leases offered to tenants or prospective tenants in such multiple dwellings shall contain a notice, conspicuously set forth therein, advising tenants of the obligations of owner and tenant under the section, approved by the Department and given in English and the City’s covered languages — and the owner must supply the tenant with the pamphlet developed by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene under Administrative Code 17-199.7. (A drafting footnote worth knowing: the subdivision points at section 8-1002 for the covered-language list, and the code’s own editor’s note records that section as repealed, with current provisions in title 21 chapter 1 subchapter 1. The duty is unaffected; the cross-reference is stale.)

Under 27-2017.5, before reoccupancy of any vacant dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling the owner must remediate all visible mould and pest infestations and any underlying defects, and thoroughly clean and vacuum all carpeting and furniture the owner provides to incoming occupants — and must certify compliance in writing to the incoming tenant on a Department form. Under 27-2017.3 the presence of visible mould in a room is itself a graded violation: less than ten square feet is non-hazardous, ten to thirty square feet is hazardous, and thirty square feet or more is immediately hazardous. And under 27-2017.12 any agreement by which an occupant waives the benefit of the article is void.

In a class A multiple dwelling, yes — the policy is incorporated into the lease, not merely handed over. The duty is Administrative Code 17-506.1, added by Local Law 147 of 2017 with effect from 28 August 2018. It is not 17-505, which one ranking page cites and which is a different section of the Smoke-Free Air Act.

Under 17-506.1(a) the owner of a class A multiple dwelling must adopt a smoking policy addressing all indoor locations of the building including common areas and dwelling units, and all outdoor areas of the premises including common courtyards, rooftops, balconies and patios and any outdoor area connected to a dwelling unit; it applies to tenants, their invitees and any other person on the premises. Under (b)(2) the owner shall incorporate the building’s smoking policy into any agreement to rent or lease a dwelling unit; under (b)(3) a condominium unit owner or cooperative tenant-shareholder does the same on a rental or purchase; under (b)(6) a tenant who sublets must incorporate it into the sublease; and under (b)(1) and (b)(7) the policy is given to all tenants or posted prominently on adoption and again annually.

Two limits that matter to a sitting tenant. Under 17-506.1(a)(4) the policy and any material change to it are not binding on a tenant during the term of a lease in effect when they were adopted, unless the lease so provides. And under (a)(5) they never bind a tenant in occupancy of a rent controlled or rent stabilized unit before the initial policy was adopted, or a family member who succeeds to that tenancy.

No — and this single subdivision decides more New York City nonpayment cases than the lease does. Not one page in the search results mentions it.

Registration is owed under Administrative Code 27-2097: for every existing multiple dwelling; before a certificate of occupancy issues for any newly erected, altered or converted multiple dwelling; for all one- and two-family dwellings where neither the owner nor any family member occupies the dwelling, within ten days of that becoming the case (family member being spouse, domestic partner, parent, parent-in-law, child, sibling, sibling-in-law, grandparent or grandchild); for garden-type maisonette projects; and on a change of ownership. An owner required to register must file a new registration statement annually.

Administrative Code 27-2107(a) then sets civil penalties for failing to file: not less than five hundred and not more than one thousand five hundred dollars for a multiple dwelling containing five or fewer dwelling units, and not less than one thousand and not more than five thousand dollars for one containing more than five. Subdivision (a-1) adds a penalty of seven hundred and fifty to five thousand dollars for filing false information, and invalidates the statement.

Subdivision (b) is the one that bites. An owner required to file a statement of registration who fails to do so shall be denied the right to recover possession of the premises for nonpayment of rent during the period of noncompliance, and shall, in the discretion of the court, suffer a stay of proceedings to recover rents during that period. In any action to recover possession under RPAPL 711 the owner must set forth the registration number issued by the Department, allege that a statement of registration has been filed, and annex a copy of the receipt of registration to the petition. Which is why this form puts the registration number and the date of the current statement into the lease itself: the tenant can verify it on the Department’s public building register, and the landlord who cannot supply it has a problem long before anyone reads the lease. If you are heading to court, see our New York City nonpayment petition.

The State ceilings apply in full, and then the FARE Act adds a disclosure the tenant must sign before signing the lease. The State layer — no application fee at all, a background and credit check charge capped at the lesser of actual cost or twenty dollars, no late charge until day five and then the lesser of fifty dollars or 5%, and a dishonoured-check charge capped at the greater of actual cost or twenty dollars — is Real Property Law 238-a and is set out in full on our statewide New York lease page and in New York late fee laws.

The city layer is the FARE Act, Local Law 119 of 2024, enacted 13 December 2024 and effective 11 June 2025, codified at Administrative Code 20-699.20 to 20-699.25. Not one of the eleven pages in our teardown carries it.

Under 20-699.21(a), except as Real Property Law 238-a(1) expressly provides, a landlord’s agent shall not impose or collect any fee from a tenant related to the rental of residential real property, and neither shall any agent who publishes a listing for the rental with the landlord’s permission or authorisation. Under (b) the landlord is in violation when its agent is. Under (c) no person may condition the rental on a tenant engaging any agent, including a dual agent. Under (d) no listing may represent that fees must be paid in a way the section forbids. And under (e) there is a rebuttable presumption that an agent who publishes a listing does so with the landlord’s authorisation.

For the lease itself the operative provision is 20-699.22(b): prior to the execution of an agreement for the rental of residential real property, the landlord or the landlord’s agent shall provide the tenant an itemized written disclosure of any fees the tenant must pay to the landlord or to any other person at the landlord’s direction in connection with the rental, including a short description of each fee; the tenant shall sign it prior to signing the rental agreement; the landlord retains the signed disclosure for three years and gives the tenant a copy. Subdivision (a) separately requires every listing to disclose any tenant-paid fee clearly and conspicuously.

Penalties under 20-699.23 run to one thousand dollars for a first violation of 20-699.21 and two thousand for each subsequent violation within a two-year period; five hundred and one thousand respectively for 20-699.22; and the Department may seek restitution of any fees charged. Under 20-699.24 any person alleging a violation may bring a civil action for compensatory, injunctive and declaratory relief.

No, and this is probably the most consequential New York City rule that no ranking page carries. Administrative Code 26-416, added by chapter 695 of the Laws of 2021 with effect from 21 December 2021, is titled Unauthorized legal fees and reads, in substance: an owner, lessor or agent thereof shall be prohibited from assessing a lessee any fee, surcharge or other charge for legal services in connection with the operation or rental of a residential unit unless the owner, lessor or agent has the legal authority to do so pursuant to a court order. Legal services are defined to include, but not be limited to, court fees, legal representation, attorney fees, notary public charges, and administrative fees incurred by the owner in connection with management of the building, including actions and proceedings in a court of law. Any agreement or assessment to the contrary shall be void as contrary to public policy.

Where its outer edge is has not been settled, and this page says so rather than guessing. The section’s own words are “a residential unit”, with no regulatory qualifier of any kind. But it is codified as the penultimate section of Administrative Code title 26 chapter 3 — the City Rent and Rehabilitation Law — whose declaration at 26-401 speaks of accommodations “subject to control hereunder”. Whether it reaches a free-market unit is a question of statutory construction that the text does not answer. The practical answer for a drafter is that it costs nothing to comply everywhere: Real Property Law 234 already routes any fee entitlement through a court and implies a mirror covenant in the tenant’s favour, RPAPL 702 already bars anything but rent in a residential summary proceeding, and Real Property Law 234 already bars a landlord fee award on a default judgment. A lease that bills no legal fee as additional rent gives up nothing it could lawfully have collected.

Its neighbour is worth the same attention. Administrative Code 26-417, added by chapter 619 of the Laws of 2022 with effect from 21 November 2022, provides that the imposition of any surcharge for the installation and use of a tenant-installed air conditioner unit is prohibited where the tenant pays for electric utility service. The air-conditioner surcharge is one of the oldest line items on a New York building’s rent bill, and the prohibition appears on no page in this search.

The State warranty says “fit for human habitation”; the Housing Maintenance Code says how warm and how hot, in numbers. Real Property Law 235-b implies the warranty into every written or oral residential lease in the State and makes any waiver void as contrary to public policy. Inside the city line, Administrative Code 27-2005(a) requires the owner of a multiple dwelling to keep the premises in good repair, and (b) makes the owner responsible for compliance with the whole Code except where the Code puts a duty on the tenant alone. Subdivision (d) forbids harassment of tenants or persons lawfully entitled to occupancy.

Heat — Administrative Code 27-2029. From 1 October through 31 May, centrally-supplied heat must maintain, in every portion of the dwelling used or occupied for living purposes: at least sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit between six in the morning and ten at night whenever the outside temperature falls below fifty-five degrees; and at least sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit between ten at night and six in the morning — with no outside-temperature condition at all on the night-time figure since Local Law 86 of 2017 took effect on 1 October 2017. Subdivision (b) also bans any device capable of preventing an otherwise operable central heating system from meeting those minimums. Most published summaries still print an outside-temperature trigger on the night-time figure; it was removed nine years ago.

Hot water — Administrative Code 27-2031. Every bath, shower, washbasin and sink in a dwelling unit in a multiple dwelling, or in a tenant-occupied one- or two-family dwelling, must be supplied at all times between six in the morning and midnight with hot water at a constant minimum of one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit from a central source — except that a bath or shower fitted with a balanced-pressure, thermostatic or combination pressure-balancing valve may discharge below that, but never below one hundred and ten degrees.

Enforcement — Administrative Code 27-2115(a). Housing Maintenance Code violations are graded. A non-hazardous violation carries fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars plus twenty-five dollars a day from the correction date; a hazardous violation seventy-five to five hundred dollars plus twenty-five to one hundred and twenty-five dollars a day; and an immediately hazardous violation one hundred and fifty to seven hundred and fifty dollars in a multiple dwelling of five or fewer units, or one hundred and fifty to one thousand two hundred dollars above five units, each with a daily amount. A false certification of correction carries its own separate scale.

Yes, and the first stage lands in the lease before it lands in the building. Nothing in it operates today, which is exactly why a page printing it as current law would be wrong. Administrative Code 27-2030, Provision of cooling systems, was added by Local Law 23 of 2026 on 17 January 2026 and runs on a staged timetable.

• By 1 January 2028 the Department must publish a tenant notice, in English and each designated citywide language, explaining the coming requirement and the opt-in process.
• From 1 March 2028 a tenant of a covered dwelling unit may elect, in the form and manner the Department designates, to make a covered room — a room the owner knows or foreseeably should know is a permanent occupant’s primary sleeping place — subject to the requirement. The election takes effect sixty days later, and where the unit is rent regulated the tenant must first consent to any necessary improvement and any associated charge.
• From the same date, 1 March 2028, subdivision (d)(3) requires that any lease or renewal lease offered to a tenant or prospective tenant of a covered dwelling unit shall (a) specify the party responsible for paying the electricity costs of operating any cooling system furnished under the section, and (b) include a copy of the Department’s published notice, conspicuously set forth in the lease, in English and each designated citywide language.
• Between 1 March 2028 and 1 September 2029 owners must give every covered tenant a copy of that notice and post it prominently.
• From 1 June 2030 the owner must, during the cooling season — 15 June through 15 September — keep an elected covered room equipped with one or more systems capable of adequate cooling, defined as an indoor air temperature no greater than seventy-eight degrees Fahrenheit measured at least three feet above the floor and three feet from any exterior wall. Where cooling is supplied through an owner-controlled central system, subdivision (b-1) requires adequate cooling from the 2030 season regardless of election.
• From 1 June 2031 the owner must inspect any such system annually and keep records.

A violation of subdivision b, b-1, d or e is a class C immediately hazardous violation with fourteen days to correct. Extensions are available in two-year increments for undue hardship, planned central installations, city financial assistance negotiations, or other criteria the Department sets by rule. Diarise 1 March 2028: that is the date a New York City lease acquires a new mandatory term, and it arrives more than two years before the physical duty does.

New York State fixes no entry notice period at all, so the lease clause decides it — but New York City adds something the State does not. Real Property Law article 7 contains no entry section; any figure quoted as “the New York entry notice period” comes from the writer, not the Legislature. What the State fixes is the outer limit: Real Property Law 235 makes wilful interference with quiet enjoyment an offence, and RPAPL 768 makes a lockout or a course of harassing conduct a class A misdemeanor carrying a civil penalty of not less than one thousand nor more than ten thousand dollars for each violation.

Inside the city line, Administrative Code 27-2008 regulates the other side of the transaction: no tenant shall refuse to permit the owner, or the owner’s agent or employee, to enter the dwelling unit or other space under the tenant’s control to make repairs or improvements required by this code or other law, or to inspect the apartment to determine compliance with the code or any other provision of law, if the right of entry is exercised at a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner — and the Department may by regulation restrict the time and manner of such inspections. Administrative Code 27-2009(3) then makes an unreasonable refusal of access for required repairs a ground for a summary proceeding. So the tenant’s refusal is itself regulated while the notice period remains a lease question, which is a genuinely unusual combination. Two specific access duties sit alongside: the tenant must give access for lead investigation and repair under 27-2056.4(b), and for window guard inspection and installation under 24 RCNY 12-06. For the notice itself, see our New York notice to enter property and New York landlord entry laws.

No, subject to two narrow exemptions — and the protection reaches the lease terms, the advertisement and the application form, not just the refusal. Administrative Code 8-107(5)(a)(1) makes it an unlawful discriminatory practice for the owner, lessor, lessee, sublessee, assignee or managing agent of a housing accommodation, because of actual or perceived race, creed, colour, national origin, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, uniformed service, height, weight, marital status, partnership status, or immigration or citizenship status, or because of any lawful source of income, or because children are, may be or would be residing with the person: to refuse to rent or lease or otherwise withhold the accommodation; to discriminate in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental or in the furnishing of facilities or services; or to represent that the accommodation is unavailable when it is not. Paragraph (2) separately bars any discriminatory statement, advertisement or publication, any form of application, and any record or inquiry made in connection with a prospective rental that expresses such a limitation directly or indirectly.

Lawful source of income is defined at Administrative Code 8-102 and includes, but is not limited to, child support, alimony, foster care subsidies, income derived from social security, and any form of federal, state or local public assistance or housing assistance including section 8 vouchers, whether or not such income or credit is paid or attributed directly to a landlord. That last clause forecloses the commonest evasion.

The coverage test. Administrative Code 8-107(5)(a)(4) disapplies the whole paragraph in exactly two situations: the rental of a housing accommodation, other than a publicly-assisted one, in a building containing accommodations for not more than two families living independently of each other, where the owner or members of the owner’s family reside in one of them, and the available accommodation has not been publicly advertised, listed, or otherwise offered to the general public; and the rental of a room or rooms, other than in a publicly-assisted accommodation, where the rental is by the occupant or by an owner who resides there with or without family. Note the third limb of the first exemption — advertising the unit forfeits it. Enforcement is by the City Commission on Human Rights, and read this alongside Real Property Law 227-f, which independently bars refusing an applicant over a past or pending housing court case and creates a rebuttable presumption where the landlord pulled a tenant screening report or checked court records and then refused.

It expires after three months of open pet-keeping, and the anti-waiver language most templates add to defend it is itself void. Administrative Code 27-2009.1 opens with a legislative declaration that enforcement of no-pet covenants in multiple dwelling leases led to widespread abuse by owners who, knowing of a pet for an extended period, sought to evict for reasons unrelated to any nuisance.

Subdivision (b) is the rule: where a tenant in a multiple dwelling openly and notoriously, for a period of three months or more following taking possession, harbours a household pet whose keeping is not prohibited by the Multiple Dwelling Law, the Housing Maintenance Code, the Health Code or any other applicable law, and the owner or the owner’s agent has knowledge of this fact, and the owner fails within that three-month period to commence a summary proceeding or action to enforce a lease provision prohibiting pets, such lease provision shall be deemed waived. Subdivision (c) then makes it unlawful for an owner or agent, by express terms or otherwise, to restrict a tenant’s rights under the section, and declares any such restriction unenforceable and void as against public policy. Subdivision (d) preserves the owner’s position where the pet damages the premises, creates a nuisance, or interferes substantially with the health, safety or welfare of other tenants or occupants of the same or an adjacent building. Subdivision (e) exempts the New York City Housing Authority.

The practical drafting consequence: a New York City no-pets clause is a three-month clause. Enforce it inside three months of learning about the pet, or it is gone — and do not try to contract around subdivision (b), because subdivision (c) voids the attempt.

Neither the State nor the City gathers its void-clause rules into a single section; both void them one enactment at a time, and the effect is the same. The State list — the habitability waiver, the roommate-law waiver, the deposit waiver, the fee waiver, the mitigation exemption, the complaint-fee clause, the electronic-payment-only clause, the stay waiver, the senior, disability and domestic-violence termination waivers, the one-sided fee clause, the exempt-property pledge and the sublet waiver — is set out on the New York State lease page. The city additions are these.

• A waiver of the lead article. Administrative Code 27-2056.15(a): no owner may seek to have an occupant waive the benefit or protection of any provision of the lead-based paint article; any such agreement is void; seeking it is a misdemeanor punishable by up to five hundred dollars or six months or both, plus a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars per violation.
• A waiver of the indoor allergen article. Administrative Code 27-2017.12 does the same for Local Law 55 of 2018.
• A charge for legal services. Administrative Code 26-416: any agreement or assessment charging a lessee court fees, attorney fees, notary charges or the owner’s administrative costs, absent a court order, is void as contrary to public policy.
• An air-conditioner surcharge. Administrative Code 26-417, where the tenant pays for electric utility service.
• Any restriction on the pet-waiver right. Administrative Code 27-2009.1(c): unenforceable and void as against public policy.
• Passing a landlord’s agent’s fee to the tenant, or conditioning the rental on the tenant engaging an agent. Administrative Code 20-699.21(a) and (c), with the landlord in violation when its agent is.
• A term that discriminates on a lawful source of income or any other protected category. Administrative Code 8-107(5)(a)(1)(b) reaches the terms and conditions of the lease, not just the refusal to rent.
• For a rent-stabilized unit, an escalator clause in any vacancy or renewal lease commencing on or after 1 April 1984 — 9 NYCRR 2522.5(e)(1) — and any rent-adjustment provision outside the four routes 2522.5(d) permits.

Because these provisions are void rather than merely unenforceable, striking one does not validate conduct already taken under it, and several carry their own remedies: a misdemeanor and civil penalty for a lead-article waiver, restitution and a private action for a FARE Act violation, and the ordinary Human Rights Law remedies for a discriminatory term.

Most of the numbers a landlord thinks of as “New York rules” are State rules that apply in Buffalo exactly as they apply in Brooklyn. Keeping the two layers apart is the whole discipline of this page, so here is the line, drawn explicitly. The following are State law and are covered in full on our New York State lease agreement builder rather than repeated here: the one-month security deposit cap and the fourteen-day itemized accounting with its forfeiture consequence and its burden of proof on the landlord; the two statutory deposit inspections; the trust-fund rule; the application-fee ban and the twenty-dollar screening ceiling; the late-fee trigger and cap and the dishonoured-check rule added in October 2025; the thirty, sixty and ninety day notice scale for a rent increase of 5% or more or a non-renewal; the Good Cause Eviction law and the statewide Good Cause notice; the sprinkler, flood and certificate of occupancy disclosures; the roommate law; the sublet and assignment procedure; the duty to mitigate; the senior, disability and domestic-violence terminations; retaliation and its one-year presumption; the tenant-blacklisting ban; rent receipts and the five-day certified-mail notice; the electronic-payment rule; plain language; automatic renewal; the fourteen-day rent demand and the whole summary-proceeding sequence; and the reciprocal attorney-fee covenant with its default-judgment bar.

Everything else on this page is city law, and none of it applies upstate. That distinction is not academic: a landlord in Yonkers who follows a New York City template will generate notices that no statute requires, and a landlord in Queens who follows a statewide template will omit a dozen that are mandatory. For the broader statewide picture see New York landlord-tenant laws.

• Suing for unpaid rent without a current HPD registration. Administrative Code 27-2107(b) denies the right to recover possession during the period of noncompliance, and the petition must plead the registration number and annex the receipt.
• Citing a repealed section for the alarms. 27-2046, 27-2046.1 and 27-2046.2 have read [Repealed] since 1 May 2019. The live section is 27-2045, and it now covers natural gas too.
• Using 27-2046.4 for detectors. Its own title is Stovetop protection. It is about stove safety knobs and knob covers where a child under six resides.
• Setting the window guard age at six. Both Administrative Code 27-2043.1(a) and Health Code 131.15(a)(1) say ten years of age and under. Six is the stove knob age.
• Using a pre-2026 window guard notice. 24 RCNY chapter 12 was repealed and replaced with effect from 1 January 2026, and the Department’s wording may not be altered.
• Emailing the annual window guard notice without written consent. Electronic delivery is permitted under 24 RCNY 12-03(a)(3)(iii) only where the occupant has consented in writing.
• Giving the infestation notice only on a vacancy lease. Administrative Code 27-2018.1(c) also requires the most recent annual filing and the health department information notice on a new lease and with each renewal, or a prominent posting.
• Filing the annual infestation report on paper as a corporate owner. 28 RCNY 59-01 rejects it as noncompliant; the paper option is for non-corporate registrants without email or computer access.
• Leaving the lead child inquiry out of a renewal lease. 27-2056.4(d)(1) requires it at the signing of a lease including a renewal lease, included in the lease or attached as a rider, completed by the occupant at signing.
• Signing the lead rider without doing the turnover work. 28 RCNY 11-03(a)(1) requires the notice to carry the owner’s signed statement of compliance with 27-2056.8 and 28 RCNY 11-05.
• Handing the gas leak notice over later. 27-2005(f) requires delivery along with the lease or lease renewal form, and posting in a common area.
• Billing the tenant for the landlord’s attorney, court or notary charges. Administrative Code 26-416 voids the agreement and the assessment absent a court order.
• Charging an air-conditioner surcharge where the tenant pays for electricity. Administrative Code 26-417 prohibits it outright.
• Relying on a no-pets clause after three months of open pet-keeping. Administrative Code 27-2009.1(b) deems it waived, and (c) voids any attempt to contract around that.
• Taking a rent-stabilized deposit into a non-interest-bearing account. 9 NYCRR 2525.4 requires an interest-bearing account in a New York State banking organization with no building-size threshold, unlike General Obligations Law 7-103.
• Handing over a stabilized lease with no Division rider. 9 NYCRR 2522.5(c)(3) removes the right to collect any adjustment above the prior lease rent.
• Missing the thirty-day return of the executed renewal lease. 9 NYCRR 2523.5(a) then bars any proceeding founded on non-renewal.
• Printing last year’s guidelines number. The figure that governs is the one in force for the lease’s commencement date, published by the Board not later than 1 July each year.
• Describing high-rent or high-income deregulation. Both were repealed in 2019 and now read [Repealed].
• Collecting a broker fee from the tenant on a landlord-authorised listing. Administrative Code 20-699.21 forbids it and makes the landlord in violation when the agent is.
• Signing the lease before the itemized fee disclosure. Administrative Code 20-699.22(b) requires the tenant’s signature on the disclosure first.
• Refusing a voucher on an advertised owner-occupied two-family unit. Advertising forfeits the 8-107(5)(a)(4) exemption.
• Quoting a night-time heat trigger. The outside-temperature condition on the 62-degree overnight minimum was removed by Local Law 86 of 2017.
• Treating the ABCs of Housing notice as a lease attachment. 28 RCNY 46-01 is a posting duty, in at least 11 point type, within view of the mail delivery area.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. New York City is unusually unforgiving of the landlord’s own paperwork, and most of the traps on this page are documents the landlord controls: a registration that lapsed, a lead rider that was never returned, a window guard notice whose proof of delivery cannot be produced within five business days, a stabilized lease that went out without its rider. Each of those is decided long before anyone looks at the tenant’s conduct. The way to stop paperwork being the whole case is to have fewer cases, and that is a screening problem. Verifiable income, a clean payment history and consistent references remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy — and in the five boroughs they are also the lawful criteria, because Real Property Law 227-f takes prior housing court involvement off the table and Administrative Code 8-107 makes a lawful source of income a protected class. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background and employment verification, and New York tenant screening laws covers what you may and may not ask.

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