Landlords Filed Suit against the RGB’s Decision to Freeze the Rent on One and Two Year Leases Despite Democratic Mandate and Ample Data in Support
Tenants Out Organized the Landlord and Real Estate Lobbies to Win this Rent Freeze and are Ready to Fight in the Courts and Legislature
NEW YORK, NY – In a desperate attempt to protect their profits, landlords filed a lawsuit against the rent freeze passed by the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) on one and two year leases. The suit comes as no surprise to tenant organizers as landlords have a long history of using legal challenges to attempt to roll back tenant protections. Ahead of the RGB vote in June, landlord member Christina Smyth resigned in an attempt to undermine the democratic process that resulted in a necessary rent freeze for NYC’s 2.4 million rent stabilized tenants.
In response to the lawsuit, NYS Tenant Bloc Executive Director Sumathy Kumar released the following statement:
“Tenants won a rent freeze because the economic data and tenant testimony clearly supported one. Landlords had no problem with the RGB’s process when it was rigged in their favor. Under the Adams administration, the RGB hiked the rent again and again, ignoring tenants’ economic reality and helping landlord profits soar. Now the RGB has the data as well as a democratic mandate to provide tenants with relief, and landlords want to change the rules. Tenants – the majority of New Yorkers – fought tirelessly to win this historic rent freeze and we are ready to protect it in every arena necessary from the courts to the legislature.”
Historically, the RGB process has primarily focused on landlord profits. Under the previous mayoral administration, the Rent Guidelines Board hiked up rents four years in a row — by a total of over 12 percent — and profits for rent stabilized landlords grew by 30 percent in that period.
Tenants have won similar suits against rent stabilization in the past. In 2025, the state Court of Appeals upheld Kingston, NY’s rent regulations in the Hudson Valley Property Owners Association, Inc., et. al. v. City of Kingston, including a 15% rent reduction for rent stabilized tenants in the municipality. In 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear another case against rent stabilization and the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA) after the Second Circuit dismissed lawsuits by landlord groups challenging rent stabilization and tenant protections.
Rent stabilization exists to protect the working people of New York; 37% of very low-income NYC households live in rent stabilized housing, and rent-stabilization keeps more than 140,000 New Yorkers out of poverty each year. While the state’s biggest lobbies — the Real Estate Board of New York, New York Apartment Association, and the Small Property Owners of New York — have been fighting to overturn and strip back rent-stabilization, tenants are organizing to ensure the policy serves its true purpose: to protect New Yorkers and keep them in New York.
Last year, New York’s tenant movement out-organized real estate, corporate, and MAGA interests to put a rent freeze on the ballot and elect a mayor responsive to tenants. Tenant Bloc collected 20,000 signatures from rent-stabilized tenants calling for a rent freeze and one million New Yorkers voted for that demand – a core plank of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s agenda – in November. Tenants make up 70 percent of New Yorkers.
