March 1, 2026

This post is a companion article to my podcast, which, at the time of publication of the episode was called Tenant Law Podcast, but which is now called Learn to Live Better, a Housing Law Podcast. Listen on Apple, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today’s focus is on Local Law 1 of 2024, which allows tenants to make complaints that HPD is obligated to follow up on regarding unoccupied apartments in a building and which is covered in Episode 28, listen on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Dangers Posed by Warehoused Apartments

Local Law 1 of 2024 raises two immediate questions. First, why would a landlord not rent out an empty apartment? Second, why would perpetually empty apartments bother other tenants in the building?

There is a phenomenon in New York City, when a rent regulated tenant leaves an apartment after being there for a long time, where sometimes a landlord does not re-rent the apartment. The landlord might perceive that the cost of getting the apartment in rentable shape, which is pretty worn down after somebody has lived there for decades, is more than they will make over a long period of time with a new rent regulated rent, which is going to be below market. I am not saying that the landlords are right; I am not saying that landlords are wrong. This is a political issue, and this is not a political podcast [or article], there are no shortage of those. Learn to Live Better, a Housing Law Podcast, is about the practical things tenants can do right now to live better in their New York City apartments. And my point simply is that there is no dispute that many apartments are being warehoused.

The reason it is tough on existing tenants to have units that are warehoused and sitting empty is because, you know the saying – “idle hands do the devil’s work”. Well, empty apartments are the source of a lot of problems in a building. Usually, the apartments that are warehoused are apartments that were in bad shape to begin with. If there is a persistent leak, and if nobody is there to complain about it, then the leak can go on and on and cause a mold condition on walls, ceilings, and floors that can get worse and worse, and that can end up affecting other apartments, either via the air circulation in the building or from the condition spreading on surfaces. Empty apartments can be havens for mice and rats. Sometimes, if the heat is not on in an empty apartment, it can cause pipes to freeze and burst. What if there is no one changing the batteries in the smoke detector in an unoccupied apartment? G-d forbid there is a gas leak in the unit.

And then there are other problems. Sometimes building personnel who are aware that an apartment is empty will use the apartment behind the owner’s back for nefarious purposes. The owner is not on site and the super is, so the super has a lot of power. So sometimes superintendents or building managers get up to untoward things in vacant apartments. Even worse, sometimes people from the outside break in and will squat in an empty apartment and that is extremely bad for the legitimate tenants of the building.

NYC Local Law 1 of 2024

In late 2023, the New York City Council added provisions to the Administrative Code to: require a multiple dwelling owner to keep all unoccupied dwelling units in good repair; and to permit inspection by HPD of such units within 21 days of receipt of complaints about conditions in the units that affect occupied dwelling units in a building. Such complaints can include claims about:

• Unsecured openings;
• Inadequate firestopping;
• Leaks, defective plumbing, and mold;
• Indications of the presence of any pests;
• Accumulation of refuse; and
• Smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.

Remember a multiple dwelling is a building with 3 or more units and this law applies to multiple dwellings. This law does not apply to unoccupied dwelling units in NYCHA housing. The law kicked in in August 2024.

The law also requires HPD “to maintain a publicly accessible interface on the website of the department that lists violations issued…” In this way, the law might be creating a database of unoccupied units, which might have some type of political significance in the future. But for our purposes, all of this leads to some very interesting Takeaways.

Takeaways

NYC Local Law 1 of 2024 gives tenants a tool to use to stimulate the landlord to keep empty apartments in good shape and to check them regularly. It is a great new tool because before this, a tenant could complain about conditions in their own apartment or in common areas, but not about conditions in an apartment that they are not entitled to enter.

If a tenant has a persistent leak into her apartment, the tenant can ask the question, “are there any empty apartments in the line above mine.” Tenants are entitled to an answer and, as per NYC Local Law 1 of 2024, tenants can get HPD into vacant units within three weeks of a complaint, which, by the way, as per the statute, can also be made in the context of a Housing Court case.

Another tip I would give is that organizing a tenant association is good for many reasons. And one of those reasons is that if tenants have a lot of eyes and ears throughout the building, they can know where empty apartments are located. A tenant might not know that there is an empty apartment right above them, but their neighbor in the tenant association might. This is an issue I would encourage tenant associations to pay attention to.

Respectfully submitted,

Michelle Itkowitz