NYC Eviction Process: A Step-by-Step Guide for Landlords (2026)

A contested eviction in New York City costs landlords between $30,000 and $70,000 — and takes 6 to 12 months. At Manhattan's median rent of $4,695 per month, a 12-month eviction means $56,340 in lost rent alone, before you add attorney fees, court costs, marshal fees, and unit turnover. In the worst cases documented by City Journal in 2025, landlords have lost over $100,000 and waited more than two years for resolution.

The NYC eviction process changed fundamentally in April 2024 when New York's Good Cause Eviction law took effect. Most guides online haven't caught up — not a single ranking result integrates this law into the actual eviction walkthrough. Landlords following outdated advice risk having their cases dismissed on procedural grounds before they ever reach a judge.

This guide covers the complete eviction process in NYC as it stands in 2026 — both nonpayment and holdover tracks, required notices, what actually happens in Housing Court, real cost breakdowns, and how to avoid ending up here in the first place.

What Changed: Good Cause Eviction and NYC Landlords

New York's Good Cause Eviction law — Real Property Law Article 6A — took effect on April 20, 2024. It requires landlords to have a documented legal reason before evicting a tenant or refusing to renew a lease. For market-rate tenants who previously had no such protections, this is the most significant change to NYC eviction law in a decade.

Is your building covered? The answer depends on your portfolio size, building age, and rent levels.

Exempt from Good Cause Eviction:

• Landlords who own 10 or fewer residential units statewide (counted across all buildings and entities where you have direct or indirect ownership)
• Owner-occupied buildings with 10 or fewer units
• Buildings with a Certificate of Occupancy issued after January 1, 2009 (exempt for 30 years)
• Units with monthly rent above 245% of HUD Fair Market Rent — for Manhattan, that's $5,709 for a one-bedroom as of May 2025
• Already rent-stabilized, rent-controlled, NYCHA, or income-restricted units
• Co-ops and condos

Covered by Good Cause Eviction: Most market-rate apartments in buildings with 11 or more units where the landlord doesn't qualify for another exemption. If you're a portfolio landlord in NYC, your units are likely covered.

Under the law, landlords can only evict for one of 10 enumerated grounds: nonpayment of rent, substantial lease violation (with 10-day cure period), nuisance, malicious property damage, illegal occupancy with a vacate order, illegal use, unreasonable refusal of access for repairs, owner occupancy for immediate family, demolition, or tenant's refusal to sign a reasonable lease renewal.

The law also caps rent increases at the local rent standard — the annual CPI change plus 5%, with a maximum of 10%. For 2025, that cap is 8.79%. Increases above this threshold are presumptively unreasonable, though landlords can justify higher increases in court based on property tax increases or significant structural repairs.

Grounds for Eviction in NYC

Every NYC eviction falls into one of two legal tracks. They cannot be combined, and filing under the wrong one means your case gets dismissed and you start over.

The statutory basis for these grounds is RPAPL Section 711. For buildings covered by Good Cause Eviction, the grounds must also match one of the 10 enumerated reasons in the law — you can't evict simply because you want the unit back or want to raise the rent beyond the local standard.

Filing the wrong type of eviction is one of the most common — and most expensive — landlord mistakes. A nonpayment case filed as a holdover, or vice versa, gets dismissed. You lose months and start from scratch.

Nonpayment Eviction: Step by Step

Nonpayment is the most common eviction track in NYC. Here's the process from the first missed rent check to physical removal:

1. Serve a certified mail notice when rent is 5 or more days late. This is a separate requirement from the 14-day demand.

2. Serve a 14-day written rent demand. Required by RPAPL 711(2). The demand must specify the exact amount owed and include the Good Cause Eviction notice. Oral demands are insufficient. Service methods: personal delivery, substitute service (person of suitable age at the premises), or conspicuous service (post on door plus certified and regular mail).

3. File a petition and notice of petition in NYC Housing Court after the 14-day period expires. The filing fee is $45. Payment by cash (exact change), certified check, or money order only.

4. Serve the tenant between 10 and 17 days before the court date. Service must follow RPAPL 735 methods in order: personal first, then substitute, then conspicuous ("nail and mail") only after failed attempts at the first two. File an Affidavit of Service proving proper notification.

5. First court appearance. Expect a crowded courtroom and a calendar call. If the tenant qualifies for Right to Counsel, the judge may adjourn the case 2 to 4 months so the tenant can obtain a free attorney. Most first appearances end in either a stipulation or an adjournment.

6. Settlement or trial. Most cases settle through a Stipulation of Settlement — a payment plan for back rent with consequences for default. If no settlement is reached, the case goes to trial. Always negotiate for "upon default" language that allows you to seek a warrant immediately if the tenant misses a payment.

7. Judgment of Possession and Warrant of Eviction. If you prevail, the court issues a judgment. The warrant goes to a NYC City Marshal or Sheriff for execution.

8. Marshal serves a 14-day Notice of Eviction. The tenant has at least 14 days after the marshal's notice before physical removal. The eviction can only happen on the 15th day or later, between 8 AM and 5 PM on business days.

One critical rule: The tenant can stop the eviction at any point before the marshal physically removes them — by paying all owed rent in full. This right survives all the way through the process.

A nonpayment eviction in NYC takes 3 to 6 months if uncontested and 6 to 12 months or more if the tenant fights it. With the post-COVID court backlog, even straightforward cases can stretch longer depending on borough.

Holdover Eviction: Step by Step

Holdover cases cover everything that isn't nonpayment: expired leases, lease violations, nuisance, owner occupancy, illegal activity, and month-to-month terminations.

1. Serve a Notice to Cure (for fixable violations) giving the tenant 10 days to remedy the issue. If the tenant cures the violation, you cannot proceed.

2. Serve a Notice of Termination if the cure period passes without resolution — or if the situation doesn't have a cure (nuisance, owner use). Termination notice periods follow RPL 226-c: 30 days for tenancies under 1 year, 60 days for 1-2 years, 90 days for 2+ years.

3. File a holdover petition after the termination notice period expires. Same $45 filing fee, same service requirements.

4. Court process follows the same trajectory as nonpayment — but holdover cases are typically longer and more complex, with more adjournments and a higher likelihood of trial.

Rent-stabilized units have additional protections: a 90-to-150-day lease renewal notice window, the "immediate and compelling necessity" standard for owner occupancy cases, and 15-year tenant protections that mirror senior and disability protections. Since the 2019 HSTPA reforms, owner-occupancy evictions of rent-stabilized tenants are extremely rare and difficult to win.

Section 8 tenants require additional steps: file NYCHA Form 059.518 before commencing proceedings, and serve a copy of any notice on NYCHA the same day you serve the tenant. You cannot evict a Section 8 tenant for nonpayment of NYCHA's portion of the rent.

Holdover evictions take 4 to 6 months uncontested and 8 to 18+ months when contested.

Evicting a Tenant Without a Lease in NYC

Month-to-month tenants without a written lease still have full legal protections in New York. You cannot simply change the locks or tell them to leave.

Before Good Cause Eviction took effect in April 2024, landlords could terminate a month-to-month tenancy by serving a 30/60/90-day notice under RPL 226-c — no reason required. That changed for covered buildings.

If your building is covered by Good Cause Eviction: You must have one of the 10 enumerated grounds to terminate the tenancy. Simply deciding you want the unit back is no longer sufficient. The termination notice must state the good cause reason, and the GCE notice must be included.

If your building is exempt: The old rules still apply. Serve a termination notice with the appropriate notice period based on tenancy length (30/60/90 days), include the GCE notice stating the exemption reason, and file a holdover proceeding if the tenant doesn't vacate after the notice period expires.

In NYC, landlords cannot evict a month-to-month tenant without following the legal process — even without a written lease. Since the Good Cause Eviction law took effect in April 2024, landlords of covered buildings must have a valid reason to terminate the tenancy. All landlords must serve 30 to 90 days written notice depending on how long the tenant has lived there.

Required Notices and Timelines

Getting the notices right is critical. Improper service is the number one procedural reason eviction cases get dismissed in NYC Housing Court.

Service methods under RPAPL 735 must follow this order: (1) personal delivery to the tenant, (2) substitute service to a person of suitable age at the premises, or (3) conspicuous service — affixing to the door plus mailing by both certified and regular first-class mail within one day. You must attempt personal and substitute service before resorting to conspicuous service.

Housing Court: What Actually Happens

NYC Housing Court operates in five borough courthouses. You file in the borough where your property is located — Manhattan at 111 Centre Street, Brooklyn at 141 Livingston Street, Bronx at 1118 Grand Concourse, Queens at 89-17 Sutphin Boulevard, and Staten Island at 927 Castleton Avenue.

What to bring: Your signed lease (or evidence of oral tenancy), a rent ledger showing all payments and arrears, copies of all notices with proof of service, your building's MDR registration number, the certificate of occupancy, all correspondence with the tenant, and any repair or inspection records if the tenant is likely to raise habitability defenses.

What to expect at your first appearance: A crowded courtroom with dozens of cases on the calendar. When your case is called, the judge or court attorney will ask if the parties can settle. You'll likely be directed to the resolution part or the hallway for negotiation. If the tenant has been assigned a Right to Counsel attorney, the case may be adjourned on the spot so the attorney can review the file.

NYC Housing Court has just 50 judges handling over 239,000 cases annually — a number that hasn't changed in 25 years. Each judge processes 60+ cases per day. The system is overwhelmed, and adjournments are the norm.

Stipulations settle the majority of cases. For nonpayment, this usually means a payment plan with deadlines. For holdover, it might be a vacate date with rent collection through departure. Always negotiate for "upon default" language — if the tenant breaks the agreement, you can seek a warrant without relitigating the case.

One-Shot Deals — emergency rental assistance through NYC's Human Resources Administration — can resolve nonpayment cases. HRA sends the back rent directly to the landlord. However, processing now takes 10 to 12 months, up from 30 to 60 days pre-pandemic. Cases are routinely adjourned pending these applications.

Right to Counsel is the reality landlords must plan for. In FY 2024, 89% of tenants with full legal representation stayed housed. Judges routinely grant 2 to 3 adjournments for the tenant's attorney, each adding 4 to 6 weeks. With 71% of tenants now represented by free attorneys, landlords walking into Housing Court without preparation face an uphill battle.

How Long Does Eviction Take in NYC?

Borough wait times for the first court hearing add significantly to the timeline. According to Bisnow's 2025 reporting, the Bronx Housing Court schedules first appearances roughly 5 months after filing. Brooklyn averages 7 months. The Red Hook Community Court — covering parts of Brooklyn — runs 11 to 15 months for initial appearances. The Harlem Community Court averages 7 to 8 months.

The post-COVID backlog is the driving factor. Active eviction cases surged 440% between March 2020 and March 2024 — from 33,000 to 177,000. NYC added 5 new judges and 60 clerks in 2024, but the system remains overwhelmed. An ABC7 investigation in 2025 found that the average eviction now takes approximately two years from filing to resolution.

A nonpayment eviction in NYC takes 3 to 6 months if uncontested and 6 to 12 months or more if the tenant fights it. Holdover evictions run longer — 8 to 18 months in contested cases. Post-COVID court backlogs mean even straightforward cases can stretch past a year depending on borough.

What Eviction Costs NYC Landlords

No other guide in the top search results breaks down the true cost of an NYC eviction. Here's what landlords are actually looking at.

Direct costs:

The hidden cost — lost rent:

Total cost by scenario:

These aren't hypotheticals. City Journal reported in 2025 on a NYC landlord who lost $109,000 over five years — repairs, legal fees, and unpaid rent combined. Another landlord saw a tenant accumulate over $100,000 in unpaid rent over four years while still seeking possession. During New York's 2020–2022 eviction moratorium, tenants exploited the system even while working remotely and earning full salary — landlords collected nothing for months because the courts offered no recourse.

And the costs don't stop at the eviction itself. Mortgage payments, property taxes, and insurance continue whether the tenant pays or not. Under RPL 234, if your lease includes an attorney fee clause, it's reciprocal — meaning if you lose the case, you pay the tenant's legal fees too.

Cash-for-Keys: When Paying a Tenant to Leave Makes Sense

Cash-for-keys is exactly what it sounds like — the landlord pays the tenant an agreed sum to voluntarily vacate, avoiding court entirely. It's legal in NYC, though it cannot involve intimidation or coercion under NYC Administrative Code § 27-2005(d).

Typical payments range from $500 to $3,000, depending on the market, rent level, and urgency.

Landlords hate it. Paying someone to leave your own property feels like rewarding bad behavior. But the financial math is clear — $2,000 now versus $30,000+ and a year of court is not a close call. City Journal's 2025 investigation found that landlords are increasingly settling cases by forgiving back rent or offering cash payments rather than enduring Housing Court proceedings.

If you go this route: get everything in writing, include a specific move-out date and waiver of claims, have an attorney review the agreement, and make payment contingent on the tenant actually vacating and handing over keys — never before.

Common Mistakes That Get Eviction Cases Dismissed

Beyond self-help eviction, here are the procedural mistakes that cost landlords months:

• Filing the wrong eviction type. Nonpayment when it's a lease violation, or holdover when the issue is unpaid rent. The case gets dismissed. You start over.
• Improper service of notices. Wrong method, wrong timing, no Affidavit of Service. The case gets dismissed.
• Missing the GCE notice. Since August 2024, every rent demand, petition, and non-renewal notice must include the Good Cause Eviction notice. Missing it is a procedural defect.
• Accepting rent after serving a termination notice. This can be interpreted as waiving the termination, creating ambiguity about whether the tenancy continues. Consult an attorney before accepting any payment during eviction proceedings.
• Missing a court date. Your case may be dismissed or decided in the tenant's favor by default.
• Inadequate documentation. No rent ledger, no copies of notices, no lease agreement. If you can't prove it, it didn't happen.

Prevention: How Better Screening Avoids Eviction Entirely

Every section of this guide makes the same point: eviction in NYC is expensive, slow, and procedurally treacherous. The landlords who never deal with it are the ones who screen rigorously and act early.

Good Cause Eviction makes prevention even more critical. For covered buildings, you can no longer easily remove a bad tenant — the bar for eviction is higher, the process is longer, and the tenant likely has a free attorney. Screening right the first time is no longer just best practice. It's the only reliable protection.

What rigorous screening looks like in NYC: income verification at 40x monthly rent, credit assessment with a 720+ threshold, criminal background checks compliant with the Fair Chance for Housing Act, eviction history review, employment verification, direct landlord reference calls, and AI-powered fraud detection on every document submitted.

At Meraki Realty, every applicant goes through all seven checkpoints — and the ones who don't pass are caught before they become a five-figure problem. For the full NYC-compliant screening framework, see our tenant screening guide.

With 89% of represented tenants staying housed through the court process, your best chance of avoiding a multi-year eviction is never placing a problematic tenant in the first place. And when early signs of trouble do appear — a late payment, a neighbor complaint — early intervention matters. Communicate immediately, suggest One-Shot Deal assistance through HRA, or request free mediation through 311 before the situation escalates to Housing Court.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

The NYC eviction process is expensive, slow, and getting more complex every year. Good Cause Eviction raised the bar for what counts as a valid reason to remove a tenant. Right to Counsel means your tenant will likely have a free attorney. The court backlog means even straightforward cases can take a year. And the financial damage — $30,000 to $70,000 for a typical contested eviction — makes every bad tenant placement a potential five-figure loss.

The landlords who never deal with Housing Court are the ones who screen rigorously, manage proactively, and act at the first sign of trouble — not the fifth missed payment. Every section of this guide exists to show you the process. The takeaway is that you shouldn't need to use it.

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This guide reflects NYC eviction law as of March 2026, including the Good Cause Eviction law (effective April 2024), the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (2019), and the Fair Chance for Housing Act (effective January 2025). For advice specific to your properties, contact our team or consult a qualified New York State real estate attorney.