NAR, Others, Oppose NYC Rent Control in Court Brief
Realtors, builders, lenders and apartment owners filed a joint amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in two cases opposing New York City’s rental laws.
WASHINGTON – The National Association of Realtors® (NAR), National Apartment Association, National Association of Home Builders, (NAHB) and the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) filed a joint amicus brief late last week in support of two cases asking the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to New York’s Rent Stabilization Law (RSL).
The two cases supporting the challenge of New York’s RSL are Community Housing Improvement Program, et al. v City of New York and 74 Pinehurst LLC, et al., v. New York.
Together, the cases include examples of the ways New York’s rental laws have made it difficult for property owners to possess and enjoy their properties, even for personal uses, and the negative impact on the broader housing market.
According to NAR, the “irresponsible laws consistently affect ‘mom-and-pop’ property owners with the fewest resources, forcing them alone to bear the public burdens beyond what the Constitution permits.”
In the brief, the four associations, speaking as one, wrote:
“[G]overnments up and down our federalist system are continually finding ways to encroach upon private-property rights. Rather than protect private property, governments have conscripted property owners into serving the state without compensation. These intrusive and unconstitutional actions include eviction moratoria and draconian rent control regimes that purport to divest property owners of long-recognized property interests. … [I]t is critical that the Court intervene to provide guidance to lower courts assessing challenges to burgeoning restrictions on private property.
“New York’s RSL demonstrates the harmful effects of misguided housing policies that restrict private-property rights. Simply put, rent control laws like the RSL exacerbate housing supply and affordability problems by reducing the quantity of available housing. They also reduce housing quality, decrease consumer mobility and entry into the housing market, and provide an inequitable solution to issues of housing affordability.”
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