{"id":316453,"date":"2026-08-08T00:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316453\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T00:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T00:16:16","slug":"new-lawsuit-slams-mamdanis-pied-a-terre-tax-for-creating-mass-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/316453\/","title":{"rendered":"New lawsuit slams Mamdani’s pied-\u00e0-terre tax for creating ‘mass confusion’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three homeowners \u2014 including the wife and father of a Republican city councilmember \u2014 sued New York City on Friday, seeking to postpone the implementation of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s new pied-\u00e0-terre tax over what they claim was a chaotic and rushed rollout.<\/p>\n

If the legal challenge is successful, it could delay the city\u2019s ability to begin collecting an estimated $500 million in revenue.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, which doesn\u2019t challenge the tax’s merits, seeks to extend the deadline for homeowners to respond and prove whether they are full-time residents. The plaintiffs argue that the Mamdani administration \u201ccaused mass confusion\u201d last month when it announced the rollout of the tax by publishing a database of properties that were mostly not subject to the tax.<\/p>\n

The homeowners are asking the court to force the city to take down the database, which features information that is publicly available on other city-run sites.<\/p>\n

The surcharge applies to those who own second homes worth more than $5 million and condos and co-op second homes with \u201cmarket values\u201d of more than<\/a> $1 million.<\/p>\n

The confusion emerged late last month when city officials published a database of more than 900,000 properties they said might be subject to the surcharge. They eventually sent notices to a much smaller set of 17,000 people saying they were identified as potentially being subject to the tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor wanted a headline, and he got one,\u201d said lawyer Randy Mastro, who is representing the homeowners and was first deputy mayor under previous Mayor Eric Adams. \u201cThousands of people who owe nothing have been confused, exposed, and put to real expense so this administration could make a political point. That is not lawful notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for Mamdani, said the city\u2019s Law Department would \u201cvigorously defend the city against this suit\u201d and that officials have been \u201cworking around the clock\u201d to respond to questions about the tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pied-a-terre surcharge will help deliver the city New Yorkers deserve: cleaner parks, safer streets and critical public investments that make our city a more affordable place,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cAs the mayor has said, we also know that whenever government asks something new of New Yorkers, we have a responsibility to make the process clear, transparent and accessible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three homeowners who brought the suit are Rachel O\u2019Brien, Carmine Morano and Simon Hedley. O\u2019Brien is married to Republican City Councilmember Frank Morano, who represents parts of Staten Island. Carmine Morano is his father.<\/p>\n

Mamdani has defended the city\u2019s process, saying the database was a routine release of the city\u2019s property tax roll required under state law. Nonetheless, many city homeowners panicked after they saw their names on the list. Tax attorneys said they were flooded with calls<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Department of Finance later amended its website to note, \u201cThe vast majority of properties and units listed in the roll will NOT be subject to the surcharge.\u201d Earlier this week, the mayor announced that the city would extend the deadline for people who received the letters, which was originally Aug. 21. They now have until Sept. 18 to respond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing we did not want to do was levy this charge without giving New Yorkers a period of time where they could engage with the city,\u201d Mamdani told reporters on Monday. \u201cAnd now that’s this period of engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hedley, a Manhattan homeowner, identified himself as a Mamdani supporter. He said in the suit he did receive a letter indicating he had been identified as subject to the second home tax.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a full-time New York City resident and homeowner, receiving a threatening letter warning of a potentially massive pied-\u00e0-terre surcharge bill was deeply unsettling,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cThe city has endless ways to verify residency; resorting to a scattergun approach and demanding that residents prove their status is disturbing, and not a very friendly act toward someone who lives in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three homeowners \u2014 including the wife and father of a Republican city councilmember \u2014 sued New York City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-316453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}