Free New York 3-Day Notice to Quit (Nonpayment) — Legacy/Non-Residential

No. RPAPL § 711(2) permits a nonpayment proceeding only where “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.” Fourteen days is the number the statute sets, and the subdivision draws no residential or commercial distinction in setting it. If you arrived here looking for the current New York rent demand, this is not it — the fourteen-day rent demand is the instrument to use, and this page exists mainly so an outdated template can be recognised for what it is.

Because a different subdivision covers a different debt. RPAPL § 711(3) applies where a tenant in a city “defaults in the payment, for sixty days after the same shall be payable, of any taxes or assessments levied on the premises which he has agreed in writing to pay,” and it is that demand — not a rent demand — that runs on “at least three days’ notice in writing.” Taxes and assessments the tenant contracted in writing to pay are not rent, so subdivision 3 does nothing to revive a three-day demand for unpaid rent.

The text of RPAPL § 711(2) does not contain one. The fourteen-day requirement is stated in the subdivision itself with no residential qualifier attached to it, and it is RPAPL § 702, the section narrowing what counts as “rent,” that is expressly limited to a residential dwelling. Whether a shorter contractual demand period written into a commercial lease can be enforced on some other footing is a question of lease construction for counsel, not something a form answers. Do not treat this page as authority that a three-day rent demand remains available commercially.

No. RPAPL § 711(2) attaches the fourteen-day demand to a tenant who “has defaulted in the payment of rent, pursuant to the agreement under which the premises are held.” It carves out nothing for monthly, weekly or year-to-year tenancies. Nor do the monthly-tenancy statutes create a shorter rent-demand period: RPL § 232-a and § 232-b govern terminating a monthly tenancy for holding over, which is a different proceeding from nonpayment and a different ground under § 711. A month-to-month tenant behind on rent still receives fourteen days.

No. The only notice-to-quit period this part of the RPAPL fixes by statute is the ten-day notice in RPAPL § 713, and § 713 is headed “Grounds where no landlord-tenant relationship exists” — it reaches squatters and intruders, occupants under a cropping agreement, purchasers at a tax sale and purchasers after foreclosure, not tenants. RPAPL § 711(1), the holdover ground where a landlord-tenant relationship does exist, prescribes no notice period of its own; those days come from the lease or from RPL § 226-c.

Historical reference. Before the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 amended it, RPAPL § 711(2) ran on a three-day rent demand, and older leases, form books and downloaded templates still reproduce that language years later. Keeping the superseded form visible makes the change legible and lets a landlord recognise an out-of-date template before serving it on anyone. It is not a form to serve. If you have a live nonpayment problem, move to the fourteen-day rent demand and read the current text of § 711(2) before serving anything.

A written fourteen-day rent demand under RPAPL § 711(2), served in the manner prescribed by RPAPL § 735 — personal delivery to the respondent; or delivery to and leaving with a person of suitable age and discretion who resides or is employed at the property; or, failing those, affixing a copy to a conspicuous part of the premises or placing it under the entrance door, followed within one day by mailing both by registered or certified mail and by regular first-class mail. The current § 711(2) also requires the RPL § 231-c good cause eviction notice to be appended or contained.

This one is practice rather than statutory text: § 711(2) states a requirement, not a penalty for ignoring it. In practice a demand giving fewer days than the statute requires is attacked as a defective predicate notice, and a defective predicate is the ordinary reason a nonpayment petition is dismissed and has to be restarted from a fresh demand. The cautious course is to re-serve a compliant fourteen-day demand and count the period again from that new service date rather than argue about the first one. Take New York landlord-tenant advice before filing.