Compliance guide
Good Cause Eviction extends a layer of protection to many market-rate apartments that were never covered by rent stabilization. For a covered unit, a landlord generally cannot evict or refuse to renew a lease without a legally recognized reason, and an above-standard rent increase can be challenged. The most misunderstood part: the rent-increase standard is an advisory presumption a landlord can rebut — not a hard cap. Here's the full picture.
New York State’s Good Cause Eviction law took effect in April 2024 (Real Property Law Article 6-A). New York City opted in, activating it for many of the city’s market-rate apartments. For a covered unit, two protections apply: the landlord must have a “good cause” to evict the tenant or decline to renew the lease, and the tenant can contest a rent increase that exceeds the law’s “reasonable” standard.
Good Cause is not rent stabilization. It does not set a legal regulated rent, it does not register the unit with DHCR, and its coverage turns on a different set of conditions — chiefly the building’s age, the owner’s total holdings, and the unit’s rent level.
Coverage is unit-by-unit, and it's orthogonal to regulation.
Good Cause reaches market-rate residential units in New York City that are not otherwise protected (it does not apply to units already covered by rent stabilization or rent control, which have their own renewal and eviction rules). Coverage broadly turns on:
Because several of these conditions move with the building, the owner, and the rent, coverage should be assessed per unit and re-checked when any of those facts change.
Even in an opted-in city, many units fall outside Good Cause. The most common exemptions:
Urbero models these as explicit exemption statuses on the unit (covered, exempt for high rent, exempt small landlord, exempt new construction, exempt other, or unknown), so an admin records why a unit is or isn’t covered rather than leaving it implicit.
For a covered unit, a landlord must have a recognized ground to evict or to refuse a renewal. The statute enumerates them, and they include:
A refusal to renew that isn’t backed by one of these grounds — or a rent increase the tenant successfully challenges as unreasonable — can be raised by the tenant as a defense in a housing-court proceeding.
This is the part most people get wrong, so read it carefully.
The standard is a rebuttable presumption — NOT a hard cap.
The local rent standard is the lower of 10% or the change in the regional Consumer Price Index (CPI) plus 5%. It is published annually by NYS DHCR/HCR (typically on or before August 1) and is keyed to the prior calendar year’s CPI — it does not run on the RGB’s October-to-September lease year.
As of the most recent published figure used in our system (a DHCR notice dated February 2025), the standard worked out to 8.79% — a regional CPI of 3.79% plus 5%, which was below the 10% ceiling. Treat that number as time-sensitive: a later DHCR notice supersedes it, so always confirm the current standard at hcr.ny.gov before relying on the exact figure. The rule (lower of 10% or CPI+5%) is durable; the percentage moves with inflation.
For a covered unit, an increase at or below the standard is presumed reasonable. An increase above it is permitted, but if the tenant challenges a non-renewal or eviction, the burden shifts to the landlord to justify the increase with documented costs. A landlord who raises an above-standard rent without a paper trail is taking on litigation risk.
Urbero treats this exactly as the law does: when a covered free-market unit’s rent exceeds the standard, the rent gate does not block the write the way it blocks an over-cap stabilized rent. Instead it surfaces a non-blocking advisory prompting the operator to document a justification — preserving the landlord’s right to rebut while flagging the exposure.
CalculatorGood Cause coverage & rent-increase calculatorCheck whether a unit is likely covered and compare a proposed increase against the reasonable-increase standard.If the unit is covered, you can’t simply decline to renew without a good-cause ground. A renewal at or below the local standard is presumed reasonable; an above-standard increase is allowed but should be documented in case the tenant contests it.
Check the small-landlord exemption against your total unit count across all holdings — the threshold is portfolio-wide, not per building. If you’re under it, your units are exempt; record that exemption reason on each unit so the next person who touches the file knows why.
If the rent exceeds the high-rent threshold (tied to Fair Market Rent), the unit is exempt from Good Cause entirely. As rents and the FMR figure change, a unit can cross that line, so re-check when you re-list.
