1. Good Faith Eviction Bill
New York residents must be aware of these two odious bills that can have a transformative, negative effect on New York’s future. The first is called a “good faith eviction.” If passed, it will dramatically change the landlord-tenant relationship.
Basically, landlords will lose control over their own properties. The bill would automatically allow present tenants to continue their leases in perpetuity, so long as their rent is current. That means, even if a small landlord has a yearly lease with a tenant, the law would not allow that lease to expire if he wished to bring in a new tenant.
Technically, there are exceptions for when a tenant is doing things contrary to the law or to the lease provisions (i.e, selling drugs or causing disturbances). But as we know, in the real world, these things are incredibly time-consuming and costly to prove.
Presently, if a tenant threatens the landlord, the property owner at the very least could refuse to renew to that belligerent tenant. If this proposal passes, the landlord would now have to go to court and prove that the tenant was acting in a threatening, violent, confrontational, or even a disrespectful manner.
If the landlord wanted to make the apartment available for a friend, she would be prevented from doing so.
Even non-landlords should oppose this measure, because you never know when you may have to rent out your premises and inadvertently wind up having someone stay in there forever.
It also will have a dampening effect on the creation of new rentals, since few people would want to have to deal with this law.
2. Electric-only Heat Bill
The second dangerous bill is the “electric-only” bill. The state’s far-left advocates and climate zealots tried to push this through last year when no one was looking. Fortunately, it was blocked at the last second. But now, they are trying again.
If passed, it would dramatically change the way we heat our buildings in New York. Rather than have the availability of cheap natural gas, this law would require that newly constructed or renovated units in buildings of a certain height would only be able to heat via electricity. This is far more expensive than heating by gas and removes a needed option.
We certainly do not have the grid in place to deal with this extra electric capacity that would be needed for heating everything new with electricity, while at the same time forcing us to buy electric vehicles that will have to plug into our homes and other sites to get from point A to point B.
These feel-good pieces of legislation do not comport with the reality of the world. They must be stopped or the dramatic increase in electric rates we’ve already seen over the last few years will continue to skyrocket even further.