Free New York 30-Day Notice to Quit

No. RPL § 226-c(2) sets a sliding scale, and thirty days is only the shortest rung on it. Under § 226-c(2)(b) a landlord must give at least thirty days’ notice where the tenant has occupied the unit for less than one year and does not have a lease term of at least one year. Paragraph (c) requires at least sixty days at one to two years, and paragraph (d) at least ninety days beyond two years. Serving thirty days on a two-year tenant does not shorten the statute; it serves a defective notice. Establish the tenancy length before you pick a form.

RPL § 226-c(2)(a) fixes the measurement: the required notice “shall be 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.” Two consequences follow. Cumulative occupancy counts, so a tenant who has renewed a series of short leases across three years is a ninety-day tenant rather than a thirty-day one. And the lease term counts even where the tenant has not yet lived there that long, so a freshly signed two-year lease is a ninety-day tenancy from the first day of it.

Both. RPL § 226-c(1)(a) is triggered where a landlord “intends to offer to renew the tenancy of an occupant in a residential dwelling unit with a rent increase equal to or greater than five percent above the current rent, or the landlord does not intend to renew the tenancy.” The same 30, 60 and 90-day scale in subdivision two governs each situation. The section also supplies its own consequence for late notice: the occupant’s lawful tenancy continues under the existing terms from the date the landlord gave actual written notice until the notice period has expired, whatever the lease says.

Yes, under the version of the law now in force. RPL § 231-c requires a landlord, as defined in RPL § 211(2), to append to or incorporate into a notice given under § 226-c(1)(a) a “Notice to Tenant of Applicability or Inapplicability of the New York State Good Cause Eviction Law.” That notice must state whether the unit is covered by Article 6-A of the Real Property Law, why it is exempt if it is exempt, and the lawful basis for non-renewal of a covered unit. The same attachment rides on a rent demand under RPAPL § 711(2).

Statewide. RPL § 226-c sits in Article 7 of the Real Property Law and is limited neither by geography nor by any rent threshold. New York City’s own month-to-month statute now points back to it: RPL § 232-a says a monthly tenant in the city may not be removed on the ground of holding over “unless pursuant to the notice period required by subdivision two of section two hundred twenty-six-c of this article,” and the free-standing thirty days survives there only “for a tenancy other than a residential tenancy.” RPL § 232-b is the outside-the-city counterpart.

No, and this is the most common misuse of a thirty-day form. A rent-stabilized tenancy in New York City runs on the Rent Stabilization Code, 9 NYCRR Part 2524: the grounds for refusing to renew without a DHCR order are listed in § 2524.4, the wrongful-act grounds in § 2524.3, and the termination-notice service windows in § 2524.2. Stabilized units outside the city run instead on the Emergency Tenant Protection Regulations, Part 2504, where § 2504.4 supplies its own grounds. Neither scheme lets an owner simply decline to renew on thirty days’ notice.

The tenancy has ended but possession has not changed hands, and RPAPL § 711 is explicit that “no tenant or lawful occupant of a dwelling or housing accommodation shall be removed from possession except in a special proceeding.” The landlord files a holdover proceeding on the § 711(1) ground. Note that § 711(1) prescribes no notice period of its own — the days came from RPL § 226-c. Even after a judgment, RPAPL § 749(2)(a) requires the sheriff, marshal or constable to give at least fourteen days’ written notice before executing the warrant.

Yes. RPL § 223-b(1) bars a landlord from serving a notice to quit or commencing a possession proceeding in retaliation for a good-faith complaint about a health or safety law or the § 235-b warranty of habitability, for good-faith action to secure or enforce rights under the lease or under law, or for participation in a tenants’ organization. Subdivision two treats refusing to continue a tenancy, or offering a renewal at an unreasonable rent increase, as retaliation as well. Subdivision four requires judgment for the tenant where retaliation is found, and subdivision five creates a rebuttable presumption.