Free New York Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable New York residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to current statewide law — the one-month deposit cap, the fourteen-day accounting, the fee caps in Real Property Law 238-a, and the five disclosures New York actually requires.

New York GOL 7-108 One-Month Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

A New York residential lease agreement is governed not by a single landlord-tenant act but by three separate bodies of law: Real Property Law article 7, the General Obligations Law for anything to do with the deposit, and the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law for anything to do with ending the tenancy. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 rewrote large parts of all three at once, and a great deal of the New York lease material still circulating describes the law as it was before that. Three points decide most disputes. The deposit is capped at one month’s rent and must be accounted for within fourteen days or the right to retain any of it is forfeited. Fees are capped by statute rather than by the lease — there is no lawful application fee at all, and the late charge cannot begin before the fifth day. And every lease in the State, in every village, town and city, must now carry the Good Cause Eviction notice, even where the locality has never adopted the Good Cause law. This page builds a statewide lease that carries all of it, and says clearly where New York City departs.

Complete the fields below to generate a statewide New York residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling New York section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening — but read New York tenant screening laws first, because Real Property Law 227-f makes it unlawful to refuse an applicant on the basis of a past or pending housing court case. Pair the signed lease with a New York move-in / move-out checklist, because the fourteen-day accounting you owe at the end rests entirely on documented condition at the start.

New York recognises the usual range, and the label matters more here than in most states because several statutes switch on and off with it. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and ends on its own date, with no notice needed to end a tenancy for a definite term — though the Real Property Law 226-c notice is still owed if the landlord wants to renew at a higher rent or not renew at all. A month-to-month tenancy renews each month until notice is given; outside the city of New York, Real Property Law 232-b lets the tenant end it on one month’s notice, while a residential landlord uses the 226-c scale in either direction. A sublease passes possession to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable, and in a building of four or more residential units the tenant has a statutory right to one. A roommate arrangement is not really a lease type in New York at all: Real Property Law 235-f gives the tenant the right to bring in an additional occupant whatever the lease says.

Two categories fall outside this form. A commercial lease is not governed by the residential provisions used here, and almost none of the protections on this page apply to one — General Obligations Law 5-702 covers residential space, Real Property Law 238-a covers a residential dwelling unit, and General Obligations Law 7-108 covers dwelling units in residential premises. Manufactured home parks have their own scheme in Real Property Law 233, and a lot in a park is not let on an ordinary residential lease. Attaching the wrong body of law to an arrangement is the most expensive drafting error available, because it is normally discovered in court.

One further split runs through the whole of New York practice: rent-regulated versus unregulated. Rent-stabilised and rent-controlled units carry a parallel regime of registration, prescribed riders, regulated renewal offers and guideline increases that a general lease form cannot generate. This page is the statewide unregulated form. If the unit is in the five boroughs, use the New York City lease builder instead, which is built for the city’s additional duties.

One month’s rent. General Obligations Law 7-108(1-a)(a) provides that no deposit or advance shall exceed the amount of one month’s rent. The wording is important: it says deposit or advance, not security deposit, so it captures every kind of up-front money together. The old New York practice of taking first month, last month and a month of security is three months of money, and it has not been lawful since 2019.

The exclusions are real but narrow, and they are worth knowing because the rankers do not list them. Subdivision 1-a does not reach a unit subject to the city rent and rehabilitation law or the emergency housing rent control law; a continuing care retirement community; an assisted living provider; an adult care facility; a senior residential community that has submitted an offering plan to the Attorney General; or a not-for-profit independent retirement community that offers personal emergency response, housekeeping, transportation and meals. Two further carve-outs sit inside the section itself. A registered seasonal use dwelling unit under 7-108(4) and (5) escapes the cap, but only if the lease expressly says the unit is registered and names the registry, states that the occupancy is for seasonal use not exceeding one hundred and twenty days, and gives the address of the primary residence the tenant will return to — and only if the unit really is registered with the local or county government. An owner-occupied cooperative apartment under 7-108(6) also escapes it, and payments forming part of the purchase price of the shares are not a deposit at all.

What the landlord may keep is also fixed by statute rather than by the lease. Paragraph (b) permits retention only for reasonable and itemized costs due to non-payment of rent, damage caused by the tenant beyond normal wear and tear, non-payment of utility charges payable directly to the landlord under the lease, and moving and storage of the tenant’s belongings. It then adds two express prohibitions: nothing may be retained for ordinary wear and tear of occupancy, and nothing may be retained for damage caused by a prior tenant.

The tenant’s. General Obligations Law 7-103(1) provides that money deposited as security continues to be the money of the person making the deposit, is held in trust, and shall not be commingled with the recipient’s personal funds. That is a trust obligation, not a contractual one, and it is why a landlord who spends the deposit during the tenancy has a problem quite separate from the accounting at the end.

Two mechanical duties follow. Under 7-103(2), where the deposit is placed in a New York banking organization the landlord must notify the tenant in writing of the name and address of that organization and the amount deposited. Under 7-103(2-a), where the building contains six or more family dwelling units the deposit must go into an interest-bearing account paying the prevailing rate for similar deposits in the area; the landlord may retain 1% per annum as administration expenses, and the remaining interest is held in trust for the tenant or paid over annually. Section 7-103(3) makes any waiver of the section absolutely void.

Section 7-105 handles a sale. On conveying the property, assigning the lease, or on the qualification of a receiver in a foreclosure, the landlord must turn the deposit over to the successor within five days and notify the tenant by registered or certified mail of the transfer and of the transferee’s name and address. Failure to comply is a misdemeanor. Section 7-108(2) then makes a grantee or assignee liable to the tenant for a deposit of which it had actual knowledge, and sets out what counts as actual knowledge and what documentary evidence a tenant may produce.

One before the tenant moves in and one before the tenant moves out, and both are the landlord’s job to offer. No ranking New York lease page carries either, and together they are the most practical protection in the whole deposit section.

The first is at General Obligations Law 7-108(1-a)(c). After the lease is signed but before the tenant begins occupancy, the landlord shall offer the tenant the opportunity to inspect the premises with the landlord or the landlord’s agent to determine its condition. If the tenant asks for it, the parties execute a written agreement before occupancy attesting to the condition and specifically noting any existing defects or damage. The consequence is the point: on the tenant vacating, the landlord may not retain any amount of the deposit for any condition, defect or damage noted in that agreement. The agreement is admissible as evidence of the condition at the start of occupancy, in proceedings about the deposit.

The second is at paragraph (d). Within a reasonable time after either party gives notice of an intention to terminate — unless the tenant terminates on less than two weeks’ notice — the landlord shall notify the tenant in writing of the tenant’s right to request an inspection before vacating and to be present at it. If the tenant requests it, the inspection happens no earlier than two weeks and no later than one week before the end of the tenancy, on at least forty-eight hours’ written notice of the date and time. Afterwards the landlord gives the tenant an itemized statement of the repairs or cleaning proposed as the basis of any deduction, and the tenant has the opportunity to cure those conditions before the tenancy ends. A tenant who cures does not pay, which is a materially better outcome for both sides than a dispute after the keys are back.

Fourteen days from the tenant vacating — and missing it is a forfeiture. General Obligations Law 7-108(1-a)(e) requires the landlord, within fourteen days after the tenant has vacated, to provide an itemized statement indicating the basis for the amount of the deposit retained, if any, and to return any remaining portion. It then says, in terms: if a landlord fails to provide the tenant with the statement and deposit within fourteen days, the landlord shall forfeit any right to retain any portion of the deposit.

That is not a penalty calculated against the amount improperly withheld. It is the loss of the right to withhold at all, however good the underlying claim. A landlord with a genuine two-thousand-dollar damage claim who sends the statement on the sixteenth day has, on the face of the statute, forfeited it.

Two further paragraphs stack on top. Paragraph (f) provides that in any action or proceeding disputing the amount retained, the landlord bears the burden of proof as to the reasonableness of the amount retained — a reversal of the ordinary position, and the reason the pre-occupancy condition agreement is worth having. Paragraph (g) makes a violator liable for actual damages, and a person found to have wilfully violated the subdivision liable for punitive damages of up to twice the amount of the deposit. Section 7-108(3) makes any agreement waiving or modifying the tenant’s rights under the section absolutely void.

Almost none before the tenancy, and a capped one during it. Real Property Law 238-a is titled “Limitation on fees” and it is the single most commonly misstated New York statute, so it is worth taking subdivision by subdivision.

Subdivision 1(a) — no application fee. Except where a statute or regulation provides for a payment, no landlord, lessor, sub-lessor or grantor may demand any payment, fee or charge for the processing, review or acceptance of an application, or demand any other payment, fee or charge before or at the beginning of the tenancy, apart from the background and credit checks allowed by paragraph (b). There are institutional carve-outs for continuing care retirement communities, assisted living providers, adult care facilities and certain senior communities, and a separate rule for cooperative housing corporations where the applicant would become a shareholder.

Subdivision 1(b) — the screening cap, and it is the lesser. A landlord may charge a fee to reimburse the cost of a background check and a credit check, provided the cumulative fee is no more than the actual cost of those checks or twenty dollars, whichever is less. It is not a flat twenty dollars. Two further conditions sit on it. The landlord shall waive the fee entirely if the prospective tenant provides a copy of a background check or credit check conducted within the past thirty days. And the landlord may not collect it at all unless the landlord provides the prospective tenant with a copy of the check and the receipt or invoice from the entity that conducted it.

Subdivision 2 — the late charge. No payment, fee or charge may be demanded for the late payment of rent unless the rent has not been paid within five days of the date it was due, and the charge shall not exceed fifty dollars or 5% of the monthly rent, whichever is less. A cooperative housing corporation may charge a shareholder up to 8% of the monthly maintenance fee where the proprietary lease provides for it, which is the only place in the section where a larger figure appears.

Subdivision 3 — the enforcement. Any provision of a lease or contract waiving or limiting section 238-a is void as against public policy. A late charge that begins on day two, a flat charge above the ceiling, an application fee wearing another name, or a “lease preparation fee” collected at signing is unenforceable to that extent, and the rest of the lease stands.

Nothing, unless the lease says so — and this rule is new. Real Property Law 238-a(2-a) was added by an act signed on October 16, 2025, effective on signature, and none of the pages currently ranking for this query carries it.

The default is a prohibition: no landlord shall demand any payment, fee or charge for the delivery of a check given in payment of rent that was subsequently dishonoured by the tenant’s financial institution for insufficient funds. The exception is paragraph (b), and it has two limbs. The charge may be demanded only if it was provided for in the lease or contract between landlord and tenant. And where it was, it shall not exceed the actual costs, charges or fees incurred by the landlord for the return of the dishonoured check, or the amount set forth in subdivision three of section 5-328 of the general obligations law, whichever is greater. That cross-referenced figure is twenty dollars. If the charge exceeds twenty dollars, the landlord must on request provide the tenant with evidence substantiating the equivalence between the charge and the actual cost incurred.

Read those two caps next to each other, because they sit in the same section and run in opposite directions. Screening under 238-a(1)(b) is the lesser of actual cost or twenty dollars. A dishonoured check under 238-a(2-a) is the greater of actual cost or twenty dollars. The first write-up of the 2025 act found in research for this page stated the dishonoured-check test backwards, as the lesser — which is exactly the kind of error that then propagates through template pages for years. The subdivision also does not apply to a shareholder of a cooperative housing corporation, although it does apply to that shareholder’s own tenant or subtenant.

Thirty, sixty or ninety days, on a sliding scale. Real Property Law 226-c was one of the headline changes of 2019 and it is the provision most often summarised loosely. Subdivision 1 sets the trigger: whenever a landlord intends to offer to renew the tenancy with a rent increase equal to or greater than 5% above the current rent, or does not intend to renew at all, the landlord shall provide written notice.

Subdivision 2 sets the period, and the measuring rule is the part that gets lost. The required notice is based on the cumulative amount of time the tenant has occupied the residence or the length of the tenancy in each lease, whichever is longer. So a tenant three months into a two-year lease is already in the ninety-day band, because the lease term is longer than the occupancy. The bands are: occupancy of less than one year with no lease term of at least a year, thirty days; more than one year but less than two, or a lease term of at least one but less than two years, sixty days; more than two years, or a lease term of at least two years, ninety days.

The consequence of getting it wrong is the sleeper. If the landlord fails to provide timely notice, the tenant’s lawful tenancy continues under the existing terms from the date on which the landlord gave actual written notice until the notice period has expired, notwithstanding any provision of a lease or other tenancy agreement to the contrary. A short notice does not simply fail; it extends the tenancy at the old rent.

One effectivity point that a summary would hide. Section 226-c is published in two complete versions. The version in force, marked as effective from August 18, 2024 until June 15, 2034, requires the notice to append or contain the Good Cause Eviction notice under Real Property Law 231-c and to say why an exempt unit is exempt. The second version, which drops that requirement, does not begin until June 15, 2034, when the Good Cause law is repealed. Reading the wrong block is how a template ends up omitting the notice entirely. For the served document itself see the New York rent increase notice and the notice of non-renewal, and for the underlying rules the New York rent increase laws guide.

In New York City automatically, and elsewhere only where the locality has opted in. This is a scope question and it is worth answering precisely, because “New York has Good Cause Eviction” is true of about nineteen municipalities and one city, and false of most of the State.

Real Property Law 212 provides that upon its effective date article 6-A applies to the city of New York. Section 213 handles everywhere else: the article applies in any village, town or city, other than the city of New York, that acting through its local legislative body adopts the provisions of this article by local law. An adopting municipality may set its own fair-market-rent exemption threshold, defaulting to 245 percent if it says nothing, and its own definition of small landlord, defaulting to no more than ten units. Where both a town and a village inside it adopt, the town’s local law does not apply within the village. The Division of Housing and Community Renewal must publish the list annually by the first of August.

As of the Division’s published notice dated May 4, 2026, nineteen municipalities had opted in besides New York City: the cities of Albany, Beacon, Binghamton, Hudson, Ithaca, Kingston, Middletown, New Rochelle, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie, Rochester and White Plains; the towns of Fishkill and Poughkeepsie; and the villages of Catskill, Croton-on-Hudson, New Paltz, Nyack and Tarrytown. Most of them set the small-landlord line far below the statewide default, at no more than one unit anywhere in the State — White Plains uses four — and their fair-market-rent thresholds run from 245 percent up to 345 percent. A landlord relying on the small-landlord exemption in Albany is therefore relying on a much narrower exemption than the statute’s default suggests.

Where the article does apply and the unit is not exempt, section 216 allows removal only on one of ten grounds, and section 214 lists fifteen exemption categories — small landlord, owner-occupied buildings of no more than ten units, sublet units the sublessor wants back, employment-linked units, rent-regulated units, income-restricted units, condominiums and cooperatives, buildings issued a certificate of occupancy within the past thirty years where the certificate came on or after January 1, 2009, seasonal use units, institutional housing, manufactured homes, transient accommodation, dormitories, religious facilities, and units above the fair-market-rent threshold. A rent increase greater than the local rent standard — the lower of 5% plus the annual regional consumer price index change, or 10% — is presumptively unreasonable, so arrears traceable to such an increase are not good cause for eviction. The owner-use, demolition and market-withdrawal grounds must each be established by clear and convincing evidence, and owner-use is unavailable against a tenant who is sixty-five or older or who is a disabled person. The whole article is repealed on June 15, 2034. Our New York Good Cause Eviction law guide goes through the grounds in detail.

Yes — including a lease in a town that has never adopted the law. This is the single most consequential thing on this page that no ranking competitor carries, and it follows from where the Legislature put the section.

Real Property Law 231-c sits in article 7, the general landlord and tenant article, not in article 6-A. Its own words are that a landlord, as defined in Real Property Law 211(2) — a definition broad enough to cover any fee owner, lessor, sublessor, assignor, receiver or other person entitled to receive rent — shall append to or incorporate into any initial lease, renewal lease, any notice under Real Property Law 226-c(1)(a), any RPAPL 711(2) fourteen-day rent demand, or any RPAPL 741 petition, the statutory Notice to Tenant of Applicability or Inapplicability of the New York State Good Cause Eviction Law.

The notice is a form, and its content settles the argument. Question 1 asks whether the unit is subject to article 6-A, with a yes and a no box. Question 2 asks, if the unit is exempt, why — and the first option on the list is: Village/Town/City outside of New York City has not adopted good cause eviction under section 213 of the Real Property Law. A statutory notice that provides a box for “my locality never adopted this law” is a notice that is expected to be served in localities that never adopted the law. Question 3 asks for the justification where the rent is going above the presumptively unreasonable threshold, and question 4 asks which of the good causes supports a non-renewal.

The practical effect is that a landlord in, say, Utica or Watertown owes the notice with every lease and every renewal, and completes it by ticking exemption A. The form generated by the builder above produces exactly that, and adapts its wording to the four possible positions: New York City, an opted-in locality, a covered locality where the unit is exempt under section 214, and a locality that has not adopted the law. Section 231-c is itself repealed on June 15, 2034.

Five, and three of them carry no threshold whatsoever. New York’s statewide disclosure set is much shorter than California’s and much stricter about the ones it has.

1. Sprinkler system notice — Real Property Law 231-a. Every residential lease shall provide conspicuous notice in bold face type as to the existence or non-existence of a maintained and operative sprinkler system in the leased premises. “Sprinkler system” takes its meaning from Executive Law 155-a. Where there is one, the lease must give further notice of the last date of maintenance and inspection. There is no building-size threshold, no actual-knowledge qualifier, and no exemption for a single-family house. A lease that simply says nothing about sprinklers has not complied.

2. Flood history and risk notice — Real Property Law 231-b. Every residential lease must state whether any or all of the premises is located wholly or partially in a Federal Emergency Management Agency designated floodplain; whether it sits wholly or partially in the Special Flood Hazard Area, the hundred-year floodplain, on FEMA’s current Flood Insurance Rate Maps; whether it sits wholly or partially in a Moderate Risk Flood Hazard Area, the five-hundred-year floodplain; and any prior flood damage from a natural flood event such as heavy rainfall, coastal storm surge, tidal inundation or river overflow that the lessor knows or reasonably should know occurred, together with the nature of the damage. Subdivision 2 then prescribes a paragraph that must appear verbatim, telling the tenant that flood insurance is available to renters through the National Flood Insurance Program, that a standard renter’s policy does not typically cover flood damage, and that the tenant is encouraged to examine the policy.

3. Good cause eviction law notice — Real Property Law 231-c, as set out in the section above. Every initial and renewal lease, statewide.

4. Certificate of occupancy disclosure — Real Property Law 235-bb. This one is conditional on size, and it is the disclosure the small upstate landlord is likeliest never to have heard of. Prior to executing a residential lease, the owner of real property consisting of three or fewer rental units shall provide conspicuous notice in bold face type as to whether a certificate of occupancy, if one is required by law, is currently valid for the unit. An owner who instead gives the tenant an actual copy of the valid certificate is deemed to have complied. Any waiver is void as contrary to public policy.

5. Federal lead-based paint disclosure. Federal, not a New York statute: for target housing built before 1978, disclose known lead-based paint and hazards, provide available records and reports, and give the tenant the Environmental Protection Agency pamphlet. Our New York lead paint disclosure form produces the federal attachment.

Mostly New York City ones. The recurring error across the New York SERP is not inventing law from nowhere — it is presenting city duties as State duties, which is a much easier mistake to make and a much harder one for a landlord upstate to spot.

Infestation history is a city duty, not a State one. The annual bed bug infestation history notice given to a tenant signing a vacancy lease comes from New York City Administrative Code 27-2018.1. There is no statewide equivalent. The State provision, Real Property Law 235-j, is titled “Duty to inform of bed bug infestation” and it does something quite different: on learning of an infestation in a unit, the landlord must give written notice within seventy-two hours to the tenants of the units immediately above, immediately below and immediately adjacent, and that notice must not identify the affected unit or contain personally identifying information; on learning of an infestation in a common area, the landlord posts notice in a conspicuous accessible place within seventy-two hours. That is a duty owed during the tenancy, not a disclosure handed over at signing, and it was last amended by chapter 77 of 2025, signed on February 14, 2025.

Window guards and the Local Law 1 lead regime are also city duties. The window guard notice and rider, and the annual lead notice where a child under six resides, come from New York City law and go well beyond the federal lead disclosure. Neither applies to a lease in Buffalo or Binghamton, though both are frequently listed as “New York” requirements. Our New York City window guard notice exists precisely because it is a separate, city-only document.

And several disclosures on the standard fifty-state checklist are simply not New York law at all. There is no statewide sex offender registry notice for a lease, no radon disclosure, no asbestos disclosure to a tenant, no mould disclosure, no shared utility meter disclosure, no methamphetamine disclosure, no carbon monoxide disclosure, and none of the ordnance-proximity notices that a few western states require. The property condition disclosure statement in the Real Property Law is a sale document — it runs between a seller and a purchaser of residential real property and has nothing to do with letting. That is the same error the wave has caught elsewhere: when a competitor asserts a disclosure duty, the test is whether the cited section speaks of a transferor and a purchaser or of a lessor and a lessee.

New York does not say. There is no landlord-entry statute in New York. Real Property Law article 7 runs from section 220 to section 238-a and contains no entry provision, which means the State has never fixed a notice period for a residential entry. Any specific figure quoted as “the New York entry notice” is coming from the writer’s expectation, from a rent-stabilisation rule that applies only to regulated units, or from another state.

What follows is practical rather than nihilistic. Because the State is silent, the lease clause is the rule between the parties, and it is one of the few places in a New York lease where drafting genuinely decides an outcome. The builder above generates an express clause — twenty-four hours for an inspection or showing, one week for non-emergency repair work, immediate entry in a genuine emergency — so that the question is answered on the page rather than argued afterwards.

The outer limit is statutory. Real Property Law 235 makes it a violation for a lessor, agent, manager, superintendent or janitor wilfully and intentionally to interfere with the tenant’s quiet enjoyment of the premises. RPAPL 768 goes further: it is unlawful to evict or attempt to evict an occupant who has lawfully occupied for thirty consecutive days or longer, other than by warrant or court order, by force, by a course of conduct interfering with the occupant’s comfort, repose, peace or quiet, by interrupting essential services, by removing the occupant’s possessions or the entrance door, or by changing the lock without supplying a key. That is a class A misdemeanor, each violation a separate offence, plus a civil penalty of not less than one thousand nor more than ten thousand dollars for each violation. A landlord who treats the absence of an entry statute as an absence of limits has misread the position badly. See the New York landlord entry laws guide and the New York notice to enter property form.

The landlord warrants habitability, in every lease, whether the lease says so or not. Real Property Law 235-b(1) provides that in every written or oral lease for residential premises the landlord is deemed to covenant and warrant that the premises, and all areas used in connection with them in common with other tenants, are fit for human habitation and for the uses reasonably intended by the parties, and that the occupants shall not be subjected to any conditions which would be dangerous, hazardous or detrimental to their life, health or safety. Where the condition was caused by the misconduct of the tenant, or of persons under the tenant’s direction or control, it is not a breach.

Subdivision 2 makes any agreement waiving or modifying those rights void as contrary to public policy. An “as is” clause, or a recital that the tenant accepts the condition of the premises in satisfaction of the warranty, has no effect in New York. Subdivision 3 then tells the court how to measure damages, and it contains a quietly important instruction: the court need not require expert testimony. A tenant does not need a surveyor to prove that the heat did not work. Where the breach is attributable to a strike or labour dispute the landlord did not cause, recovery is excluded to that extent apart from the landlord’s net savings, provided the landlord made a good faith attempt where practicable to cure. Where the unit is rent-regulated, an award is reduced by any rent reduction the Division of Housing and Community Renewal has already ordered for the same matters.

Two neighbouring sections carry teeth of their own. Real Property Law 235 makes wilful failure to furnish hot or cold water, heat, light, power, elevator service or telephone service that the lease requires, at a time when it is necessary to the proper or customary use of the building, a violation — an offence, not merely a contract breach. And Real Property Law 235-a lets a tenant who lawfully pays a utility company or municipal water system for service the landlord failed to pay for deduct that payment from future rent, and makes an owner of a multiple dwelling who causes gas, electric, steam or water service to be discontinued by not paying past charges liable for compensatory and punitive damages. For the standards themselves see the New York habitability laws guide, and log the requests with a New York maintenance request form.

Finally, Real Property Law 227 gives the tenant an exit where the building is destroyed or so injured by the elements or any other cause as to be untenantable and unfit for occupancy: absent an express written agreement to the contrary, a tenant not at fault may quit and surrender possession, owes no rent for the period after the surrender, and has any rent paid in advance adjusted to the date of surrender.

A fourteen-day written rent demand, and then a court proceeding the tenant can moot by paying. New York eviction procedure is entirely statutory and a landlord cannot shorten any part of it by agreement.

The demand. RPAPL 711(2) permits a nonpayment proceeding where the tenant has defaulted in the payment of rent and a written demand of the rent has been made with at least fourteen days’ notice requiring, in the alternative, the payment of the rent or the possession of the premises, served as RPAPL 735 prescribes. Under the version in force until June 15, 2034, that demand must append or contain the Real Property Law 231-c good cause notice. Use the New York fourteen-day notice to pay rent or quit for the document itself.

The service. RPAPL 735 permits personal delivery; delivery to a person of suitable age and discretion residing or employed at the property, where on reasonable application admittance can be obtained and such a person found; or, failing both, affixing to a conspicuous part of the property or placing under the entrance door. Substituted and conspicuous-place service must be followed within one day by mailing both by registered or certified mail and by regular first class mail. Proof of service is filed within three days. Record it with a New York affidavit of service.

The timing and the petition. Under RPAPL 733(1), except in a nonpayment proceeding under section 732, the notice of petition and petition are served at least ten and not more than seventeen days before the hearing date. RPAPL 741 sets the contents of the petition: the petitioner’s interest, the respondent’s interest and relationship, a description of the premises, the facts, and the relief sought — plus, under subdivisions 5-a and 5-b, the good cause notice and, where the small-landlord exemption is claimed, the ownership information that exemption requires.

The tenant’s two chances to pay. RPAPL 731(4) provides that in an action premised on a default in rent, payment of the full amount due at any time before the hearing shall be accepted by the landlord and renders the ground on which the proceeding was commenced moot. And after judgment, RPAPL 749(3) requires the court to vacate the warrant on tender or deposit of the full rent due at any time before the warrant is executed, unless the landlord establishes that the tenant withheld the rent in bad faith.

The cure stay. Where the proceeding is based on a breach of a lease provision rather than rent, RPAPL 753(4) provides that the court shall grant a thirty-day stay of the issuance of the warrant during which the tenant may correct the breach. RPAPL 753(1) separately allows a stay of up to one year on a showing of extreme hardship, weighing serious ill health, significant exacerbation of an ongoing condition and a child’s enrolment in a local school against the hardship a stay imposes on the landlord. Subdivision 5 makes a waiver of the section void.

The warrant. RPAPL 749(2)(a) requires the sheriff, marshal or constable to give at least fourteen days’ written notice before executing the warrant, and to execute it on a business day between sunrise and sunset. Paragraph (b), unusually, requires the officer to check the property for a companion animal before executing and to arrange for its safe and proper care. The whole sequence is set out in our New York eviction process guide and the New York eviction notice laws.

No. RPAPL 702 provides that in a proceeding relating to a residential dwelling, “rent” means the monthly or weekly amount charged in consideration for the use and occupation of the dwelling pursuant to a written or oral rental agreement, and that no fees, charges or penalties other than rent may be sought in a summary proceeding, notwithstanding any language to the contrary in any lease or rental agreement.

The practical consequences are larger than the sentence looks. A late charge, a legal fee, a utility charge billed back to the tenant, or a damage claim cannot be added to the fourteen-day demand or to the petition; adding them can make the demand itself defective, because the tenant is being asked to pay more than the law defines as rent to avoid eviction. The landlord’s remedy for those amounts is an ordinary money claim, separately. The only exception in the section is for a cooperative housing corporation and its own shareholder-tenant, where the proprietary lease provides for such amounts to be recoverable.

The landlord must try to re-rent. Real Property Law 227-e, added in 2019 and still absent from most New York lease templates, provides that where a tenant vacates premises occupied for dwelling purposes in violation of the lease, the landlord shall, in good faith and according to the landlord’s resources and abilities, take reasonable and customary actions to rent the premises at fair market value or at the rate agreed to during the term of the tenancy, whichever is lower. Where the landlord does re-rent, the new tenant’s lease, once in effect, terminates the previous tenant’s lease and mitigates the damages otherwise recoverable. The burden of proof is on the party seeking to recover damages — the landlord. And any provision in a lease that exempts the landlord’s duty to mitigate is void as contrary to public policy.

Three statutory early exits sit alongside it. Real Property Law 227-a lets a tenant aged sixty-two or older, or an individual with a disability as defined in the Executive Law, terminate where the tenant is medically unable to live independently and will move in with a family member, or has been notified of the opportunity to occupy an adult care facility, a residential health care facility or subsidised senior housing. Termination is by written notice effective no earlier than thirty days after the next rental payment date following delivery, a mailed notice is deemed delivered five days after mailing, and the tenant supplies a physician’s certification plus either a notarised family-member statement or the executed lease or contract with the receiving facility. A waiver is void, and seizing the tenant’s personal effects to claim rent after a lawful termination is a misdemeanor.

Real Property Law 227-c lets a victim of domestic violence, or a tenant whose household member is one, terminate on written notice specifying a date no earlier than thirty days after delivery, with documentation supplied within twenty-five days. Prepaid rent for the period after termination is refunded within ten days. The landlord may not sever a remaining co-tenancy without the remaining tenants’ consent and must give them at least thirty days to decide, and may not divulge or characterise the termination to a prospective landlord or any third party. A knowing violation carries liquidated damages of up to one thousand dollars plus actual damages, costs and fees. Real Property Law 227 covers destruction of the premises. Our New York breaking a lease guide covers the interaction, and the tenant notice to vacate form produces the document.

More people than the lease usually says. Real Property Law 235-f, universally called the roommate law, makes it unlawful for a landlord to restrict occupancy of residential premises, by express lease terms or otherwise, to a tenant or tenants or to such tenants and immediate family, and provides that any such restriction, in a lease entered into or renewed before or after the section took effect, is unenforceable as against public policy.

The construction rules do the work. A lease entered into by one tenant is construed to permit occupancy by the tenant, the tenant’s immediate family, one additional occupant, and that occupant’s dependent children, provided the tenant or the tenant’s spouse occupies the premises as a primary residence. A lease entered into by two or more tenants is construed to permit occupancy by the tenants, their immediate families, occupants and occupants’ dependent children, provided the total number of tenants and occupants, excluding dependent children, does not exceed the number of tenants specified in the lease, and at least one tenant or a tenant’s spouse occupies as a primary residence.

Two balancing provisions matter to landlords. The tenant shall inform the landlord of the name of any occupant within thirty days of the occupancy beginning, or within thirty days of a landlord’s request. And no occupant, and no occupant’s dependent child, acquires any right to continued occupancy if the tenant vacates, or any other right of tenancy, without the landlord’s express written permission. Subdivision 8 preserves the landlord’s right to restrict occupancy to comply with federal, state or local law — occupancy-standard codes still apply. A provision purporting to waive the section is null and void, and an aggrieved person may sue for an injunction, actual damages and court costs.

Sublet, usually yes; assign, usually no — and the two are governed by opposite rules in the same section. Real Property Law 226-b(1) deals with assignment: unless the lease confers a greater right, the tenant may not assign without the owner’s written consent, which may be unconditionally withheld without cause. The counterweight is that if the owner withholds consent unreasonably, the owner must release the tenant from the lease on the tenant’s request upon thirty days’ notice — and that release is the tenant’s sole remedy.

Subdivision 2 deals with subletting and runs the other way. In a dwelling having four or more residential units, a tenant renting under an existing lease has the right to sublease subject to the landlord’s advance written consent, which shall not be unreasonably withheld. The procedure is precise. The tenant mails a notice of intent by certified mail, return receipt requested, accompanied by seven items: the term of the sublease, the name of the proposed sublessee, that person’s business and permanent home address, the tenant’s reason for subletting, the tenant’s address during the sublease term, the written consent of any co-tenant or guarantor, and a copy of the proposed sublease with a copy of the tenant’s own lease attached where available.

The clock then runs against the landlord. Within ten days of the mailing the landlord may ask for additional information reasonably needed to decide, which must not be unduly burdensome. Within thirty days of the request, or of the additional information, whichever is later, the landlord must send notice of consent or of the reasons for refusal — and the landlord’s failure to send that notice is deemed to be consent. If consent is unreasonably withheld the tenant may sublet in accordance with the request and may recover the costs of the proceeding and attorney fees on a finding that the owner acted in bad faith. A sublet or assignment that does not comply is a substantial breach of the lease, and a provision purporting to waive the section is null and void. Public housing, units with statutory admission criteria, and proprietary cooperative leases are outside the section.

A dozen of them, and New York voids them one statute at a time rather than in a single list. That is why a New York lease can look unremarkable and still contain three unenforceable clauses. The pattern to watch for is the phrase “void as contrary to public policy”, which appears again and again through article 7.

• Any waiver of the warranty of habitability — void as contrary to public policy, Real Property Law 235-b(2). This kills “as is” clauses and acceptance-of-condition recitals.
• Any restriction of occupancy to the tenant and immediate family, and any waiver of the roommate law — unenforceable and null and void, Real Property Law 235-f(2) and (7).
• Any waiver of the deposit rules — absolutely void, General Obligations Law 7-103(3) and 7-108(3).
• Any waiver or limitation of the fee caps — void as against public policy, Real Property Law 238-a(3).
• Any clause exempting the landlord from the duty to mitigate after an early departure — void as contrary to public policy, Real Property Law 227-e.
• Any clause charging a tenant a fee, penalty or dollar charge for making a complaint — null and void, Real Property Law 223-b(5-a).
• Any clause making an electronic system the only way to pay rent, or charging for declining it — void, Real Property Law 235-g(2).
• Any waiver of the right to a stay of the warrant, including the mandatory thirty-day cure stay — void, RPAPL 753(5).
• Any waiver of the senior, disability or domestic-violence termination rights — void, Real Property Law 227-a(4) and 227-c(6)(b).
• Any waiver of the sublet and assignment section — null and void, Real Property Law 226-b(6).
• Any pledge of personal property exempt by law from levy and sale as security for rent — void, Real Property Law 231(4).
• Any waiver of the reciprocal attorney-fee covenant — void as against public policy, Real Property Law 234.

Two general provisions sit over the top. Real Property Law 235-c lets a court that finds a lease or clause unconscionable as a matter of law refuse to enforce the lease, enforce the remainder without the clause, or limit the clause’s application to avoid an unconscionable result, after giving the parties a reasonable opportunity to present evidence of the clause’s setting, purpose and effect. And Real Property Law 231(1) operates in the landlord’s favour: where the tenant uses the premises for an illegal trade, manufacture or other business, the lease becomes void by force of the statute and the landlord may enter.

It can contain a fee clause, but the clause will not stay one-sided and it will not work on a default. New York belongs with California in treating a one-sided fee clause as an invitation to reciprocity rather than as something to strike out — but Real Property Law 234 goes one step further than California does.

Wherever a residential lease provides that the landlord may recover attorneys’ fees or expenses incurred as a result of the tenant’s failure to perform a covenant, or that amounts the landlord pays for fees shall be paid by the tenant as additional rent, section 234 implies into the lease a covenant by the landlord to pay the tenant’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred as a result of the landlord’s failure to perform any covenant, or in the successful defence of any action or summary proceeding the landlord brings arising out of the lease. The tenant may recover those fees by action or by counterclaim in the landlord’s own proceeding.

Then comes the sentence most templates never reach: a landlord may not recover attorneys’ fees upon a default judgment. In a jurisdiction where a large share of housing-court judgments are defaults, that is not a footnote. And any waiver of the section is void as against public policy. A separate rule, Real Property Law 238, addresses unauthorised legal fees in another context; a landlord drafting a fee clause should reckon with 234 first.

Yes, and it runs on a one-year presumption. Real Property Law 223-b bars a landlord from serving a notice to quit or commencing an action to recover possession in retaliation for a good-faith complaint, by or on behalf of the tenant, to the landlord, the landlord’s agent or a governmental authority about a violation of a health or safety law or a habitability condition; for the tenant’s good-faith action to secure or enforce rights under the lease, the warranty of habitability or the landlord’s repair duty; or for the tenant’s participation in a tenants’ organisation.

Subdivision 2 extends the ban to substantially altering the terms of the tenancy, including refusing to renew, refusing to offer a new lease, or offering an unreasonable rent increase. Subdivision 5 supplies the presumption: where the landlord takes an adverse action within one year of the tenant’s protected act, retaliation is presumed and the burden shifts to the landlord to prove a non-retaliatory motive. Retaliation is an affirmative defence in an eviction proceeding, though the rent obligation continues, and a violating landlord is liable for damages, attorney’s fees and costs.

Subdivision 5-a is a drafting rule rather than a litigation rule and it is easy to breach unintentionally: any lease provision which seeks to assess a fee, penalty or dollar charge on a tenant for making a complaint is null and void as against public policy. A “nuisance complaint fee”, a “false alarm charge” or a “service call fee” applied when a tenant reports a condition is exactly the clause the subdivision was written for. Subdivision 6 carves out an owner-occupied dwelling with fewer than four units, and preserves the landlord’s position where the condition was caused by the tenant or where ownership has genuinely changed hands.

No, and the presumption runs against the landlord. Real Property Law 227-f provides that no landlord of residential premises shall refuse to rent or offer a lease to a potential tenant on the basis that the potential tenant was involved in a past or pending landlord-tenant action or summary proceeding under RPAPL article 7. This is the provision that ended tenant blacklisting in New York.

The enforcement mechanism is what gives it force. There is a rebuttable presumption of violation where it is established that the landlord requested information from a tenant screening bureau relating to a potential tenant, or otherwise inspected court records relating to that person, and subsequently refused to rent. In other words, the sequence itself creates the presumption. The Attorney General may bring an action for an injunction and a civil penalty of not less than five hundred nor more than one thousand dollars for each violation.

What remains lawful is ordinary screening on ordinary criteria: creditworthiness, verifiable income, rental references, employment. What is unlawful is using the fact of a prior housing court appearance as the reason. That is a real operational distinction, and it is why documenting the actual reason for a denial matters in New York more than in most states. Where a denial is based on a consumer report, the federal adverse-action duty still applies — use the New York landlord adverse action notice.

Receipts are compulsory, and there is a five-day certified-mail duty attached that almost nobody knows about. Real Property Law 235-e(a) requires the lessor, or any agent authorised to receive rent, to give the tenant a written receipt on receiving rent in cash or any instrument other than the tenant’s own personal check. The receipt must carry the date, the amount, the identity of the premises and the period for which it is paid, and the signature and title of the person receiving the rent.

Subdivision (b) lets the tenant request in writing that receipts also be given for payment by personal check, and that request remains in effect for the duration of the tenancy unless the tenant says otherwise. The landlord must keep a record of all cash rent receipts for at least three years. Subdivision (c) sets the timing: a receipt for a payment handed over in person is issued immediately; a receipt for a payment transmitted indirectly is issued within fifteen days.

Subdivision (d) is the sleeper. If the lessor or an authorised agent fails to receive payment of rent within five days of the date specified in the lease, the lessor shall send the lessee, by certified mail, a written notice stating the failure to receive such rent payment. And the consequence is stated in the same breath: the failure to provide that written notice may be used as an affirmative defence by the tenant in an eviction proceeding based on non-payment of rent. A landlord who goes straight from a missed rent day to a fourteen-day demand, without that certified-mail notice, has handed the tenant a defence. The New York late rent notice is the document for it.

Real Property Law 235-g completes the picture: a landlord shall not require a tenant to use an electronic billing or payment system as the only method for the payment of rent, and shall not assess any fee or other charge on a tenant who chooses not to use one. A waiver is void as contrary to public policy. A lease that says “rent is payable exclusively through the resident portal” is unenforceable in New York.

Yes, and it has since 1978. General Obligations Law 5-702(a) requires every written agreement entered into after the first of November 1978 for the lease of space to be occupied for residential purposes to be written in a clear and coherent manner using words with common and every day meanings, and to be appropriately divided and captioned by its various sections. It is the oldest tenant-protection statute on this page and the one least often mentioned.

A lessor who fails is liable to the tenant for actual damages plus a penalty of fifty dollars, with a ceiling of ten thousand dollars across any class action or series of class actions arising out of the same non-compliant form. A lessor who attempts in good faith to comply is not liable for the penalty, and the section does not apply to agreements involving amounts above two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or prohibit wording that another law requires. Subdivision (b) is the counterweight: a violation does not render the agreement void or voidable and is not a defence to an action to enforce it. Subdivision (c) lets the Attorney General proceed under Executive Law 63(12).

The related trap is General Obligations Law 5-905. A lease provision stating that the term is deemed renewed for a further period unless the tenant gives notice of an intention to quit is inoperative unless the lessor, at least fifteen days and not more than thirty days before the date by which the tenant must give that notice, serves the tenant — personally or by registered or certified mail — with written notice calling attention to the existence of the provision. Automatic renewal clauses are common in New York leases and the reminder notice is rarely served, which means the clause usually does nothing.

In four ways that matter to a lease, and this statewide form deliberately generates none of them. Everything above is New York State law and applies in Buffalo, Binghamton and the Bronx alike. What follows applies only in the five boroughs.

Rent stabilisation and rent control. A stabilised unit carries a parallel regime: registration with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, prescribed lease riders, regulated renewal offers on a prescribed form, and increases limited to the Rent Guidelines Board’s annual determination rather than to anything the parties agree. A general lease form cannot generate a compliant stabilised lease. See the rent stabilized lease renewal offer and the rent stabilized rider.

Infestation history at signing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2018.1 requires the owner to furnish each tenant signing a vacancy lease with a notice setting out the property’s infestation history for the previous year, both for the unit and for the building, on the city form — and sections 27-2018.1 and 27-2018.2 require an owner of a multiple dwelling to survey occupants annually and file an annual report with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. There is no statewide counterpart to any of that.

Lead paint. Local Law 1 of 2004 imposes inspection, remediation and annual-notice duties where a child under six resides in a pre-1960 unit, and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development issues hazard violations after inspection. That is far heavier than the federal disclosure this statewide form generates.

Window guards. The city health code requires window guards, an annual notice and a lease rider where a child aged ten or under lives in the unit. There is no State analogue.

Two State provisions also read differently inside the city. Real Property Law 232-a governs the holdover notice for a monthly tenancy in the city of New York and routes a residential tenancy through the 226-c(2) periods, while 232-b governs outside it. And Good Cause Eviction applies in the city automatically under Real Property Law 212, rather than by opt-in. If the property is in the five boroughs, build from the New York City lease builder rather than this page.

• Taking first month, last month and a deposit. General Obligations Law 7-108(1-a)(a) caps every kind of up-front money at one month’s rent combined.
• Sending the deposit statement on the fifteenth day. The right to retain any portion is forfeited under 7-108(1-a)(e), however good the claim.
• Never offering the pre-occupancy inspection. The written condition agreement is the landlord’s own best evidence, and paragraph (f) puts the burden of proof on the landlord without it.
• Charging an application fee. Real Property Law 238-a(1)(a) bans it outright; only the capped background and credit check fee survives.
• Charging a flat twenty dollars for screening. The cap is the actual cost or twenty dollars, whichever is less, and it is waived entirely on a thirty-day-old report.
• Collecting the screening fee without handing over the report and the invoice. Paragraph (b) makes the fee uncollectable until both are provided.
• Starting the late charge on the second day. Nothing is chargeable until the rent is five days late, and then only fifty dollars or 5%, whichever is less.
• Charging a bounced-check fee with no clause to support it. Since October 2025, Real Property Law 238-a(2-a) permits none unless the lease contracted for it.
• Serving thirty days on a tenant two years in. Real Property Law 226-c(2) requires ninety, measured on the longer of occupancy or lease term.
• Leaving the Good Cause notice out because the town never adopted the law. Real Property Law 231-c requires it anyway, with the non-adoption box ticked.
• Omitting the sprinkler notice from a single-family lease. Real Property Law 231-a has no size threshold and requires the notice even where there is no system.
• Omitting the flood notice. Real Property Law 231-b applies to every residential lease and prescribes the renter’s insurance paragraph word for word.
• Copying a New York City lease for an upstate property. Infestation history, window guards and Local Law 1 are city duties and import obligations the State never imposed.
• Writing an occupancy clause limiting the unit to the named tenants. Real Property Law 235-f makes that unenforceable as against public policy.
• Telling a departing tenant they owe the rest of the term. Real Property Law 227-e requires the landlord to mitigate, and puts the burden of proof on the landlord.
• Adding late fees to the fourteen-day rent demand. RPAPL 702 allows only rent to be sought, and an inflated demand can be defective.
• Relying on an automatic renewal clause. General Obligations Law 5-905 makes it inoperative without the reminder notice fifteen to thirty days ahead.
• Making the resident portal the only way to pay. Real Property Law 235-g voids that, and voids any fee for declining it.
• Charging a fee when a tenant complains. Real Property Law 223-b(5-a) makes such a clause null and void, and the complaint itself starts a one-year retaliation presumption.
• Refusing an applicant because of a prior housing court case. Real Property Law 227-f prohibits it and presumes a violation where a screening-bureau request preceded the refusal — see New York tenant screening laws.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. New York is unusually unforgiving of the landlord’s own paperwork — a deposit above the cap, an accounting sent on the fifteenth day, a demand that includes a late fee, a notice period counted from occupancy when the lease term was longer. Each of those is decided on documents the landlord controls, 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 New York they are also the lawful criteria, because Real Property Law 227-f takes prior housing court involvement off the table. 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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