The Mamdani administration is seeking to speed up one of the most cumbersome sectors of New York City’s legal system: housing court. 

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday announced a new fast track to expedite the most urgent housing court cases for tenants, targeting vacate orders and immediately hazardous conditions. Landlords quickly criticized it as a one-sided policy that doesn't address the declining income generated by the city's rental housing.

Housing court is notoriously slow, drawing criticism from both landlords and tenants, as Bisnow previously reported. The issue is commonly attributed to a lack of resources and recent procedural changes that have increased adjournments.

“When a building is dangerous, when an elevator is out or when a landlord has abandoned their responsibility to provide a safe home, tenants should not have to wait months or years for relief,” Mamdani said in a statement. “This new fast track will help make sure our Housing Court moves with the same urgency as the emergencies New Yorkers are facing.”

Property groups have taken issue with the new fast track.

The New York Apartment Association said streamlining repair cases will push nonpayment cases further back in line. 

“You can’t starve a building of rent for a year and then call the elevator an emergency,” NYAA CEO Kenny Burgos said in a statement. “This plan creates a presumption of guilt for violation cases and presumption of innocence for nonpayments.”

In a statement, Small Property Owners of New York Board President Ann Korchak called it “another one-sided, anti-landlord policy” that ignores nonpayment evictions, which can cause building owners to fall behind on repairs. 

Though under state law, eviction cases should be resolved in approximately a month, in some parts of the city, the average case drags on for 15 months.

A June survey by the New York City Housing Partnership covering nearly 200,000 affordable apartments found that a majority of buildings are more than 95% occupied, yet only 5% of landlords collect rent at that level. Nearly half collect below 90% of gross potential rent.

Declining rent collections were classified as a leading driver of stress for 61% of respondents. Overall, 80% characterized at least a 10th of their portfolios as financially stressed.

Financial distress, especially among rent-stabilized housing, has risen alongside violations and vacate orders. More than 600 buildings spanning approximately 2,000 units have been subject to either a partial or full vacate order this year, a Bisnow investigation earlier this month found. The total has already exceeded the annual average and is on pace to set a new record.

It takes an average of a year and a half to bring vacated buildings back to livable conditions, if the violations are resolved at all, according to city data. Tenant advocates said a lack of pressure on landlords, from either the courts or city agencies, is to blame.

“Every day of displacement disrupts families’ lives and can mean losing access to schools, jobs, health care, neighbors, and community,” Adriene Holder, chief attorney of the civil practice for The Legal Aid Society, said in a statement, adding that the organization is “proud to have worked with [the Department of Housing Preservation and Development] to advance this important reform.”

The fast track applies to cases where there is a vacate order affecting one-third or more of the apartments in a building, there is an open, immediately hazardous Class C violation for lack of essential services — such as heat or hot water — in at least one-third of the units, or all elevators in the building are out of service. 

It also applies to Article 7A proceedings — cases in which the city or tenants seek the appointment of a third-party building manager — where there is an open, immediately hazardous violation from either HPD or the Department of Buildings. In such cases, there is no threshold for the number of units with violations.

Cases that qualify for the fast track will be sent to the housing court’s supervising judges for approval. It is expected to impact between 40 and 50 buildings annually, a City Hall spokesperson told Bisnow.

In a statement, New York City Housing Court Supervising Judge Jack Stoller said the system is dedicated “to ensuring safe housing for the most vulnerable New Yorkers while also ensuring that landlords have a right to present their arguments as well.”

Under the new streamlined system, judges will be assigned to a case the same day it is filed, with an expedited timeline for subsequent filings and appearances. Once the parties are served, they will have to appear in court within five days.

Additionally, a judge will only be able to grant adjournments “when determined to be absolutely necessary,” according to a directive filed with the civil court. Currently, there is no fixed cap on the number of adjournments a housing court case can receive, although judges have discretion to limit them.  

To support the fast track, the courts are expanding the number of judges eligible to be assigned to housing part and Article 7A cases. There are 55 judges serving in New York City Housing Court, with each processing more than 60 cases a day on average. 

But based on availability, volume of cases and the case’s circumstances, the court will have the discretion to schedule hearings, meaning that the true impact of the directive is yet to be determined.

The directive doesn't increase the amount of funding for housing court’s operations, though the city has increased the funding for right to counsel starting in fiscal year 2027. 

Under the 2017 law, judges have to adjourn hearings until representation for low-income tenants is secured. The requirement increased the burden on legal service providers, causing organizations in the space to lose between 20% and 55% of their staff in the first two years of rollout, according to the New York City Comptroller's Office.

Funds for RTC were increased by $14.3M in FY 2027 and are expected to be raised by $40M annually thereafter.

The directive, announced on Tuesday, was first made effective on July 16 but required the Unified Court System to create internal processes for implementation, according to a city spokesperson.