{"id":319073,"date":"2026-08-11T23:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319073\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T23:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T23:42:08","slug":"meet-the-nyers-fighting-mamdanis-pied-a-terre-tax-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/319073\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the NYers fighting Mamdani’s pied-\u00e0-terre tax in court"},"content":{"rendered":"

They\u2019re sticking it to the tax Mam.<\/p>\n

A trio of New Yorkers \u2014 two family members of a GOP lawmaker and the other a self-described supporter of Mayor Zohran Mamdani \u2013 are the standard bearers for a legal fight<\/a> that temporarily put New York City\u2019s pied-\u00e0-terre tax on hold.<\/p>\n

Rachel O\u2019Brien, whose husband is City Councilman Frank Morano (R-Staten Island), said she joined the high-profile lawsuit after Mamdani\u2019s administration included their home on a published list of more than 900,000 properties<\/a> that could fall under the new levy.<\/p>\n

Rachel O\u2019Brien\u2019s house in Staten Island was listed in the pied a terre tax despite it being her family\u2019s primary residence and valued less than $5 million on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, in New York, NY. (Stephen Yang) Stephen Yang for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I saw it I was confused and a little bit angry that the city would do this,\u201d O\u2019Brien, 41, told The Post as she cared for her newborn child Tuesday. \u201cI immediately knew it was wrong and I had conversations with my husband, who\u2019s a city councilman and he had been receiving phone calls from constituents who were on the list and confused and worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien said she immediately thought about how it was \u201ccrazy\u201d that the city was \u201cable to do this and just sort of throw people\u2019s lives into disarray.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the city just putting unnecessary stress on middle income homeowners who are just going to work, paying their mortgages, paying their property taxes, utilities \u2014 trying to raise their families like we\u2019re doing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor didn\u2019t seem to care that this rollout was based on completely erroneous information, so I wanted to set the record straight with this lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbors, friends and relatives who likewise were surprised to discover their own homes appeared on the controversial list \u2014 which was published on the city Department of Finance website late last month \u2014 have overwhelmingly supported the suit, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been received well just because people feel the same way \u2014 that the city botched this,\u201d O\u2019Brien said. \u201cThey\u2019re essentially doxing lawful property owners and was done in such a sloppy manner that confused and in some cases intimidated people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frank Morano is a Republican City Councilman from Staten Island. Frank Morano\/Instagram<\/p>\n

The pied-\u00e0-terre tax is meant to hit the wealthy owners of secondary residences in New York City: one- to three-family homes worth at least $5 million and co-ops and condominiums valued at $1 million.<\/p>\n

But the suit filed Friday alleges that the owners of properties on the \u201csupplemental tax roll\u201d \u2014 including O\u2019Brien and her father-in-law and fellow plaintiff Carmine Morano \u2014 were effectively doxed and sent into unnecessary panic because the vast majority wouldn\u2019t be subject to the surcharge.<\/p>\n

Another group of 17,000 New Yorkers \u2014 represented by Chelsea resident Simon Hedley in the lawsuit \u2014 received mailed notices from the DOF warning them<\/a> they\u2019d be hit with the tax unless they filed for an exemption.<\/p>\n

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani initiated a \u201cpied-\u00e0-terre tax\u201d targeting luxury, non-primary residence properties worth over $5 million in New York City in April 2026. Instagram\/@nycmayor<\/p>\n

Hedley, a Mamdani supporter who didn\u2019t take issue with the pied-\u00e0-terre law approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul, joined the case in frustration over City Hall\u2019s apparent scattershot approach to implementing the levy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t seem to have done any due diligence around town, as far as I can tell; they\u2019ve scatter-gunned thousands and thousands of people without really knowing who\u2019s who,\u201d he told The Post after the suit was filed.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNow, it\u2019s the burden of proof on the residents to prove they are residents,\u201d the frustrated New Yorker said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hedley\u2019s only home is in Chelsea, and, since the suit was filed, he has managed to prove to the city that his property should not be subject to the tax.<\/p>\n

Simon Hedley, a self-described Mamdani supporter, said that he did not like City Hall\u2019s approach on the tax rollout. James Messerschmidt for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThey got back to me super fast, so I really appreciate that,\u201d he said this week. \u201cGetting back to people really quickly, who are uploading documents and all that sort of stuff, I think that will go a long way to making this, getting past this mapping road.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Hedley and O\u2019Brien were pleased with a Staten Island judge\u2019s ruling Monday that temporarily paused the pied-\u00e0-terre rollout \u2014 thought the Mamdani administration is appealing the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause people believe the old adage \u2018you can\u2019t fight City Hall,\u2019 but I don\u2019t believe that you don\u2019t stand up when something is wrong,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re sticking it to the tax Mam. A trio of New Yorkers \u2014 two family members of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[2850,57,9,24,63,79763,7754,134,136,135,58,82],"class_list":["post-319073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-lawsuits","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pied-a-terre","tag-property-taxes","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319073","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=319073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}