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Free NYC Nonpayment Petition Worksheet

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NYC Nonpayment Petition Worksheet — a preparation organizer for a New York City Housing Court nonpayment summary proceeding under RPAPL § 711(2). It is not the official court form; it helps you assemble the facts the case requires before you complete the Housing Court forms.

Nonpayment Worksheet RPAPL § 711(2) NYC Housing Court Free PDF

A New York City nonpayment proceeding is a summary court case a landlord brings to recover unpaid rent and, if the rent stays unpaid, possession of the apartment. It rests on RPAPL § 711(2), and the single most important prerequisite is a written fourteen-day rent demand: the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act replaced the old three-day oral demand with a 14-day written demand. Only after that demand is served and expires without payment can the landlord file a Notice of Petition and Petition in NYC Housing Court. The worksheet on this page organizes every fact the case needs — the parties, the premises, the tenancy and rent, the demand, the rent owed by period, and the relief — but it is a preparation tool, not the official court petition, and it is not legal advice. Because a nonpayment case can end in eviction, both landlords and tenants should read the requirements carefully and, where the matter is contested or the unit is regulated, get a New York attorney.

Complete the fields below to generate a NYC nonpayment preparation worksheet as a PDF you can print or attach to your file. It organizes the information the official NYC Housing Court forms will ask for. The PDF is titled a Worksheet on purpose — it is not the official Notice of Petition and Petition, and completing it does not commence a case. Retain proof of the underlying 14-day demand and its service with your records.

This page is a preparation worksheet for a New York City residential nonpayment proceeding. It exists because the information a nonpayment case needs is easy to get wrong when it is scattered across a lease, a ledger, and a demand letter, and a single missing or mis-stated fact can sink an otherwise valid case. The worksheet gathers those facts in one place so they can be transferred cleanly onto the official court papers. To be clear about what it is not: it is not the official Notice of Petition and Petition, it does not start a case, and it is not legal advice. NYC Housing Court publishes its own official nonpayment forms, and those forms, together with the court’s current rules and the governing statutes, control every real filing.

The law behind the case is the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, principally Article 7. A landlord who wants the guide-level background can read our New York landlord-tenant laws overview and the companion New York eviction notice laws page; a tenant who lives in a regulated apartment should also review our NYC rent-stabilized lease resource, because the rent that can be demanded in a nonpayment case is the lawful regulated rent, not whatever a lease happens to say. The sections below walk through each statutory requirement in the order the case actually moves.

A nonpayment proceeding is a summary proceeding — a fast-tracked special proceeding created by statute to resolve possession disputes more quickly than an ordinary lawsuit. Its authorizing ground is RPAPL § 711(2), which lets a landlord recover possession when “the tenant has defaulted in the payment of rent, pursuant to the agreement under which the premises are held, 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.” Two things follow directly from that text. First, there must be an agreement to pay rent — a nonpayment case presupposes a landlord-tenant relationship with an agreed rent, so where there is no such agreement the proper vehicle is a holdover, not a nonpayment. Second, the written fourteen-day demand is a statutory predicate, not a formality; without a proper demand the court lacks the basis to proceed.

The remedy in a nonpayment case is deliberately conditional. The tenant can end the case at almost any point by paying the rent that is due, because the whole point of the proceeding is to collect the rent, and the possession judgment is the pressure that secures payment. That “pay-and-stay” character — the right to cure by paying, generally up until the warrant of eviction actually issues — is what distinguishes a nonpayment from a holdover, where the tenancy itself has ended. A landlord who understands that the case is fundamentally about money, not about ending the tenancy, will frame the demand and the petition around the rent owed, which is exactly what the statute rewards.

The rent demand is where most nonpayment cases are won or lost. Before the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, RPAPL § 711(2) allowed a landlord to make an oral three-day demand. The HSTPA changed that: the demand must now be in writing and must give the tenant at least fourteen days to either pay the rent or surrender possession. A demand that gives thirteen days, or that a landlord only spoke aloud, does not satisfy the statute, and a petition built on a defective demand is exposed to dismissal.

The demand must state the rent that is owed with enough specificity that the tenant can figure out what to pay to cure — the periods and the amounts, not merely a single lump sum. A demand that overstates the rent, that lumps several months together without a breakdown, or that demands charges that are not “rent” under the lease and the law, invites a challenge. In a regulated apartment the amount demanded cannot exceed the lawful regulated rent; demanding an unlawful rent both undermines the demand and can seed an overcharge counterclaim. The fourteen days are counted from proper service, so the landlord should serve the demand in a provable way and calendar the fourteenth day carefully before treating the demand as expired.

Once the demand has expired, the case is commenced under RPAPL § 731 by a Notice of Petition and a Petition. The contents of the petition are governed by RPAPL § 741, and it is worth reading closely because each requirement is a place a petition can fail. Section 741 requires that the petition be verified — sworn to by the petitioner, or by an officer, attorney, or agent authorized to verify it — and that every petition:

• State the petitioner’s interest in the premises from which removal is sought (for example, that the petitioner is the owner or the net lessee).
• State the respondent’s interest in the premises and the respondent’s relationship to the petitioner (for example, tenant under a written lease).
• Describe the premises from which removal is sought, specifically enough to identify the apartment.
• State the facts on which the special proceeding is based — in a nonpayment case, the agreement to pay rent, the rent owed by period, and the making and service of the fourteen-day demand. A petition that recites only a lump sum without the underlying facts does not meet § 741.
• State the relief sought, which may include a money judgment for the rent due and for use and occupancy where the notice of petition demands it.

Section 741 also folds in newer requirements. Subdivision 5-a requires the petition to append or incorporate the notice described in Real Property Law § 231-c — the good cause eviction law notice, which states whether the unit is covered by that law and, where relevant, the justification for a rent increase above the local standard. A petition that omits a required § 231-c notice can be dismissed. Because these requirements change as the law develops, the safest practice is to prepare the facts on this worksheet and then complete the current official court petition, which is kept up to date with the statute.

How the papers reach the tenant is governed by RPAPL § 735, and the method matters as much as the timing. Section 735 permits three methods of service of the notice of petition and petition: personal delivery to the respondent; substituted service by delivering to a person of suitable age and discretion who resides or is employed at the property; or conspicuous-place service (“nail and mail”) by affixing a copy to a conspicuous part of the premises or placing it under the entrance door. Substituted and conspicuous-place service each require, in addition, that the petitioner mail copies within one day — both by registered or certified mail and by regular first-class mail — to the respondent at the property (and, for a natural person, at the last known residence or place of business where known). Missing the mailing, or mailing late, is a frequent and fatal service defect.

The timing of service is set by RPAPL § 733: the notice of petition and petition must be served at least ten and not more than seventeen days before the return date — the day the petition is noticed to be heard. Nonpayment proceedings have their own wrinkle under RPAPL § 732: the notice of petition is returnable within ten days after service, the respondent may answer, and if the respondent answers the clerk fixes a trial date not less than three nor more than eight days after issue is joined; if the respondent fails to answer within the statutory period, the petitioner may seek a default judgment. Because the ten-to-seventeen-day window and the nonpayment answer rules interlock, the return date should be chosen with both § 733 and § 732 in view. Note as well that under RPAPL § 731 the notice of petition may be issued only by an attorney, a judge, or the clerk of the court — a self-represented owner cannot issue it and must have the clerk do so.

If the apartment is rent-stabilized or rent-controlled, the nonpayment case carries extra requirements that an unregulated case does not. First, the owner generally must be in current compliance with DHCR rent registration: owners of rent-stabilized units must file initial and annual rent registrations with New York State Homes and Community Renewal, and an owner who is delinquent in registration can be barred from collecting a rent increase and exposed to challenge in the nonpayment case. Second, the rent the landlord demands and sues for cannot exceed the lawful regulated rent on file — demanding an amount above the legal regulated rent both weakens the demand and can trigger a rent-overcharge defense or counterclaim, which shifts the case from a simple collection into a rent-history dispute.

Regulated tenancies also come wrapped in additional protections that surface in a nonpayment case: succession rights, the right to a proper renewal at the regulated rate, and DHCR fact-sheet guidance on what counts as collectible rent. For a market-rate apartment, the case is simpler, but the good cause eviction law and its § 231-c notice may still apply. The practical rule is the same in every case: confirm the regulatory status of the unit before you demand a dollar, because the entire arithmetic of the demand and the petition depends on which rent is the lawful one. A tenant who receives a nonpayment petition on a regulated unit should compare the demanded rent to the registered rent and the last proper renewal before assuming the amount is correct.

Nonpayment cases are dismissed far more often for procedural defects than for weak facts. The recurring failures are predictable, and nearly all of them trace back to the demand, the petition contents, or service.

• A defective rent demand. Using fewer than fourteen days, relying on an oral demand, overstating the rent, or lumping months together without a breakdown. The demand is the predicate; if it fails, the case fails.
• Filing before the demand expires. Commencing the proceeding before fourteen full days have run from proper service of the written demand.
• A lump-sum petition. Reciting only a total owed without stating the rent by period and the underlying facts, contrary to RPAPL § 741.
• Defective service. Skipping or mistiming the certified-and-first-class mailing that RPAPL § 735 requires after substituted or conspicuous-place service, or serving outside the ten-to-seventeen-day window of § 733.
• Demanding an unlawful rent in a regulated unit, or filing while delinquent on DHCR registration, which opens an overcharge defense and can bar the case.
• Omitting a required notice, such as the Real Property Law § 231-c good cause eviction notice that RPAPL § 741(5-a) requires the petition to include.
• A self-represented owner issuing the notice of petition, which RPAPL § 731 forbids — only an attorney, a judge, or the clerk may issue it.
• Using self-help — changing locks or removing belongings — instead of the court process, which is illegal and exposes the landlord to serious liability.

• Confirm the regulatory status first. Determine whether the unit is rent-stabilized, rent-controlled, or market, and pull the DHCR registration and last proper renewal before you fix the amount to demand.
• Serve a clean written fourteen-day demand. State the rent by period, in dollars, do not overstate it, and serve it in a provable way; calendar the fourteenth day before treating it as expired.
• Keep proof of everything. Retain the lease, the rent ledger, the demand, and the affidavit or proof of how the demand was served — the file is what carries the case.
• State the rent by period in the petition, not a lump sum, and include the facts RPAPL § 741 requires along with any § 231-c notice.
• Have the clerk or an attorney issue the notice of petition under RPAPL § 731 if you are self-represented, and mind the ten-to-seventeen-day service window.
• Never use self-help. Only the court can order an eviction; a lockout is illegal and costly.
• Screen tenants before the tenancy starts. The best defense against a nonpayment case is a well-qualified tenant — verify credit, income, and rental history before you sign.
• Get counsel for anything contested, regulated, or high-value; the margin for error in these proceedings is small.

A nonpayment proceeding is one of the few areas of everyday landlord-tenant law where a small technical mistake — a demand a day short, a missing mailing, a lump-sum petition, an unregistered regulated unit — can defeat an otherwise legitimate claim, or cost a tenant a valid defense. The stakes are a person’s home on one side and months of unpaid rent on the other, and the rules reward precision. For that reason, this worksheet is intentionally a preparation tool and stops short of being the court petition.

If you are a landlord, strongly consider engaging a New York landlord-tenant attorney to prepare and prosecute the case, especially for a regulated unit or a contested matter; many practitioners handle nonpayment cases routinely and can spot a defective predicate before it becomes a dismissal. If you are a tenant who has been served, do not ignore the papers — appear on the return date, and seek help from a housing attorney or the court’s Help Center, because defenses such as an improper demand, a rent overcharge, or a breach of the warranty of habitability under Real Property Law § 235-b can materially change the outcome. NYC Housing Court’s Help Centers and city-funded legal services exist precisely because these cases are hard to navigate alone. When in doubt, get advice before you file or respond.

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