The series of hearings, which were held across the five boroughs between February and April, provided an outlet to tenants accusing their landlords of negligence. In response, property owners expressed outrage, claiming the campaign was essentially a witch hunt.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani after signing an executive order establishing Rental Ripoff hearings on Jan. 4
The mayor’s office has refuted those claims, saying the hearings informed proposed reforms that will improve the way upright landlords work with tenants and the city and only target those who operate maliciously.
“This report is about facilitating a dialogue between responsible owners and residents and setting a standard for what it means to operate in the market,” New York City Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants Director Cea Weaver told reporters Wednesday.
The city has emphasized that landlords were welcome to participate in the Rental Ripoff hearings. Weaver said tenant and landlord groups will be briefed on the report.
Overall, the administration engaged with more than 2,400 New Yorkers through one-on-one listening sessions, interactive boards and online testimony. Tenant concerns were consistent with issues reported through other means, including 311 complaints, the NYC Tenant Helpline and the city’s 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey, according to the 67-page report.
The most common issues reported were pests and mold, mentioned in 16% and 13% of testimonies citywide, respectively. Broken elevators were reported by 7% of participants, with some disabled or elderly residents recounting instances where they had to be carried up stairs by their neighbors or were effectively trapped in their homes.
More than 50 attendees mentioned being displaced by fires and other disasters.
Heat and hot water outages are most commonly reported in 311 calls, comprising 35% of all reported housing maintenance issues, although many of those complaints came from a small group of properties. On the Tenant Helpline, 1 in 6 callers claimed to experience tenant harassment. The second-most-frequent complaint was landlords’ failure to make repairs, accounting for 13% of calls handled.
During the hearings, tenants doubled down on those claims, expressing frustration over the city’s intervention process and property owners’ ability to self-certify that conditions have been remedied. At least one tenant said their property managers had temporarily raised the heat when anticipating an inspection, only to shut it off shortly after.
The city’s own data showed that 32% of violations were found to be falsely certified in fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
Bisnow/Sasha Jones
New York City Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants Director Cea Weaver speaks to attendees following a Rental Ripoff hearing presentation.
Landlord groups have countered that the majority of property owners care about their tenants and properly maintain their buildings. An analysis of more than 761,000 buildings by the Real Estate Board of New York found that about 10% of properties account for 97% of executed evictions, 88% of all violations and 94% of the most severe offenses.
In its report, the city said it aims to differentiate between “low-road landlords” and “high-road landlords” who “meet regularly with their tenants and work alongside the City and lenders to ensure that housing quality is strong and modest returns are stable.”
To do so, the Mamdani administration outlined four strategies to bolster enforcement against the low-road landlords and empower tenants. Some of the measures were proposed in the mayor’s “Block by Block” housing plan, released in May. Others revolve around strengthening existing programs.
“I've been completely impressed with the many resources that the city has but just how difficult it is for people to navigate those resources,” Weaver said.
Several of the report's recommendations involve reforming the Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s fundamental processes.
“[We heard] a lot of confusion with how the city communicates with both tenants and owners, especially around both getting a violation investigated, written, and then also getting a violation cleared or resolved,” Weaver said.
For landlords that continually fail to correct hazardous violations or falsely report a repair as done, the city intends to increase fines.
Weaver said some of the reforms may require additional approval by the city council but that the report is “completely legally solid.” Still, rollout could take several years — and a greater financial investment by the city.
Under the budget adopted in June, several agencies that touch housing increased staffing levels, including HPD. That will significantly help the city’s execution of the proposed reforms, according to Weaver.
“I think we are taking steps to implement what it will take in order to carry out the recommendations in this report,” Weaver said.
Addressing The Bureaucracy
The first strategy around landlord accountability involves more follow-up inspections and increasing interagency coordination, including logging complaints across multiple apartments within a single building together. City Hall hopes that will reduce the number of complaints in the system, which totaled 300,000 in 2025.
To address failing elevators, the Department of Buildings is expected to study the ability to install lifts in walk-up buildings to increase the pool of accessible units and expand its use of third-party inspectors. The DOB last month implemented new rules requiring building owners to provide alternative accommodations if elevator service to all or part of a building is disrupted for more than 14 days.
To better address pests and mold, the city is instructing HPD to better coordinate with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
The recommendations go beyond individual complaints to expand enforcement across portfolios, a key plan of action under Mamdani.
That means increasing access to landlord information to determine who owns what in the first place. Such information is often hidden behind LLCs, but even if an owner’s identity is known, city agencies operate off of separate databases that may lack the information.
The city plans to upgrade its databases and require landlords to provide contact information to ensure compliance with housing regulations.
A frequent complaint from tenants at the hearings was how they often weren’t home when inspectors visited. HPD plans create a platform through which tenants can schedule appointments.
Bisnow/Sasha Jones
The city takes feedback from Rental Ripoff hearing attendees
The city also plans to overhaul its Alternative Enforcement Program for the first time in its 20-year history. The program increases monitoring of severely distressed properties and allows the city to make the necessary repairs and bill the landlord for them.
“That type of thing works really well if the building is financially stable and the owner is choosing not to make repairs,” Weaver said. “Buildings can really start to languish in AEP if the building doesn't have money.”
For bankrupt buildings, the city hopes to better connect owners to its preservation loan programs. For repeat offenders that fall into the negligent bucket, the administration plans to increase penalties.
Mamdani plans to back legislation that would expand the DOB’s lien authority to include all categories of violations in which the outstanding penalties total $25K or more.
In housing court, the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants is seeking to expedite cases related to building conditions and prevent the filing of eviction cases stemming from administrative issues involving vouchers or other types of financial support. For the latter cases, the mayor’s office is exploring ways to better connect tenants and owners of affordable and supportive housing to financial assistance.
'Empowering Tenants To Take Action'
Tenant unions have been a central force in the Mamdani administration. Weaver’s own advocacy work began in organizing under the Crown Heights Tenant Union.
But there are no regulations that require landlords to acknowledge or bargain with tenant unions — something the Mamdani administration aims to change.
The Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants said it will coordinate with HPD to create a framework for working with unions and further orchestrate enforcement actions with the help of tenant associations. It also plans to create guides to help tenants organize if they haven’t done so already.
Bisnow/Sasha Jones
New York City Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants Director Cea Weaver listens to a tenant during the first Rental Ripoff hearing on Feb. 26.
One of the report’s larger proposals involves introducing legislation that reconsiders the use of credit checks as part of the rental application process. Doing so would aid renters exiting shelter or receiving financial assistance.
Potential changes may include allowing landlords to require either a credit check, paid for by the landlord or their broker, or a salary disclosure meeting the 40-times-the-rent requirement, but not both.
Weaver added that the use of artificial intelligence has grown more prominent in rental listings. As a result, some residents have been conned by fake brokers advertising nonexistent properties.
To curb misleading ads, the city seeks to require that any rental listings containing digitally altered photos include a clear disclosure. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection would work with Zillow, Streeteasy and other listing companies to do so.
Among the ways that the city aims to make the rental process more transparent is by working with the city council to define which utilities or services tenants are responsible for, the metering structure, shut-off policies for nonpayment, and how tenants can make complaints for noncompliance.
During the hearings, Weaver said she was surprised to hear about hidden fees that tenants encounter.
“There's a reality of looking for an apartment in New York City that if you find one you can afford, you're going to take it,” Weaver said. “You may not know that later on, during the winter, the electric bill is going to be much higher.”
https://www.bisnow.com/new-york/news/multifamily/zohran-mamdani-rental-ripoff-hearings-report-135448
