{"id":318199,"date":"2026-08-10T23:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T23:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318199\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T23:34:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T23:34:24","slug":"staten-island-judge-temporarily-blocks-mamdanis-pied-a-terre-tax-rollout-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/318199\/","title":{"rendered":"Staten Island judge temporarily blocks Mamdani\u2019s pied-\u00e0-terre tax rollout"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Staten Island judge has temporarily blocked<\/a> the hotly contested rollout of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s so-called pied-\u00e0-terre tax<\/a> that levies a surcharge on wealthy New Yorkers who have a second home in the city.<\/p>\n

The decision comes in a suit filed Friday by homeowners \u2014 including members of Republican City Council Member Frank Morano\u2019s family \u2014 who are arguing that the way Mamdani rolled out the pied-\u00e0-terre tax created \u201cmass confusion\u201d and therefore should be paused so second-home owners have more time than the current deadline of Sept. 18 to appeal the tax being levied on them and get their documents in order. They are represented by attorney Randy Mastro, formerly a first deputy mayor to Eric Adams.<\/p>\n

On Monday,\u00a0Staten Island Supreme Court Judge Wayne Ozzi agreed with Mastro\u2019s clients, ruling the way the city notified 17,000 alleged double-home owners about the tax did \u201cnot constitute proper notice under tax law\u201d and unlawfully put the burden of proving they shouldn\u2019t be subject to the tax on homeowners. Those \u201csuspected\u201d of having a second home in the city received mailed notices that they may be on the hook for the tax, directing them to let the city know if they believed the city\u2019s assumption was incorrect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ozzi also agreed with the argument advanced by Mastro\u2019s clients that Mamdani\u2019s controversial publicly posted online \u201cdatabase\u201d of over 900,000 residential property and co-op unit records and their owners \u2014 which the administration has since said was not necessarily a list of properties that may be subject to the tax \u2014 wasn\u2019t the right way to go about things.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo law permitted or required the City to publish such a list of the names, addresses, and property values of more than 900,000 New York City homeowners, or to further publicize that list through an irregular, mid-year publication,\u201d Ozzi wrote. \u201c[The judgment] annuls and vacates [the] City\u2019s mailed notices, and any determination that such mailed notices constitute proper notice under tax law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ozzi added that the city should have conducted an \u201cindividualized statutorily-required initial determination\u201d before issuing the mailed notices so as not to place the burden on the property owners to prove whether or not they should have to pay.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s office said it disagreed with the judge\u2019s ruling and would be \u201cimmediately\u201d appealing it, which will allow the city to \u201ccontinue with the pied-\u00e0-terre\u2019s implementation\u201d as planned. A spokesperson added that the mayor was \u201cconfident\u201d in the city\u2019s pied-\u00e0- terre tax while taking the opportunity to take a jab at Mastro, who has gained a reputation for suing the new administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSince leaving office, Mr. Mastro has already sued the city five times,\u201d said Mamdani spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach. \u201cWe disagree with today\u2019s ruling, but we are confident in both the pied-\u00e0-terre surcharge and the City\u2019s ability to implement it fairly and effectively. This surcharge asks those who own second homes valued at $5 million or more to contribute their fair share to the city they benefit from.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ozzi set an Aug. 31 hearing where Mamdani\u2019s Law Department will argue as to why the temporary order blocking the tax\u2019s implementation should be nixed, and the city should be allowed to continue rolling out the tax as it sees fit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier today, when asked whether he had \u201cany regrets\u201d on the tax\u2019s rollout at an unrelated press conference, Mamdani did not directly answer, saying he knew that \u201cwith any new tax, there are more questions than there are answers,\u201d adding that his administration will \u201cvigorously defend\u201d itself against the suit.<\/p>\n

Critically, the suit does not challenge the legality of the tax itself, only how it was rolled out. It will at most delay the tax\u2019s implementation, which could still spell trouble for Mamdani\u2019s plans, pushing back the date the city can expect to rake in roughly $500 million<\/a> in revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tax applies to second residences when they\u2019re condos valued at at least $1 million or single-family homes valued at at least $5 million. The tax progressively increases as the value of the home increases, topping out at 1.3% of a single-family home\u2019s value when it\u2019s worth over $25 million and 6.5% of a condo or co-op\u2019s value when it\u2019s worth over $5 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s widely seen as aligning with Mamdani\u2019s campaign promise to tax the rich, a key demand of the Democratic Socialists of America and a win for the mayor, who was able to convince Gov. Kathy Hochul to pass the tax in this year\u2019s state budget as a new revenue source for the city budget. Mamdani has previously defended posting the roll of 900,000 properties online, saying it was simply part of the city\u2019s state-mandated routine tax roll publication.<\/p>\n

The administration previously extended the deadline for those who received a mailed notice to appeal the tax from Aug. 21 to Sept. 18, with Mamdani saying<\/a> he wanted to ensure property owners had enough time to engage with the city. \u00a0<\/p>\n

A property may be exempt if it is the primary residence of its owner, certain immediate family members, the sole beneficiary of a trust or people who collectively hold a majority stake in the entity that owns it. And, units rented or sublet under an arm\u2019s-length lease of at least one year may also qualify. The tax is expected to be paid on June tax bills next year.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Adam Daly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Staten Island judge has temporarily blocked the hotly contested rollout of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s so-called pied-\u00e0-terre tax…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2710,22925,9,24,63,79763,5326,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-318199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-law","tag-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pied-a-terre","tag-randy-mastro","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318199","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=318199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}