{"id":360092,"date":"2026-09-29T20:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/360092\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T20:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T20:52:07","slug":"mamdani-must-redo-his-pied-a-terre-tax-rollout-ny-judge-orders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/360092\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani must redo his pied-\u00e0-terre tax rollout, NY judge orders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s attempt to levy a new tax on luxury second homes faced new legal headwinds Tuesday after a Staten Island judge invalidated notices that have already been mailed to property owners and a billionaire casino owner teamed up with a former Trump cabinet secretary on a second pied-\u00e0-terre lawsuit.<\/p>\n

In a previous lawsuit filed in August, Judge Wayne Ozzi ordered the city to take down a list of more than 900,000 properties potentially subject to the new tax and issue new notices to owners of second homes who may be required to pay the surcharge.<\/p>\n

The ruling came shortly after Stephen Wynn, founder of Wynn Resorts, and Wilbur Ross, former U.S. commerce secretary, opened their own legal front against the new tax, which applies to homes valued at $5 million or higher, or condos and co-ops worth at least $1 million. The pair, along with Ross\u2019 wife, accused the state of discriminating against wealthy out-of-towners through a new \u201cproperty tax that falls exclusively on nonresidents of New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July, the city issued notices to roughly 17,000 addresses, informing the owners that they may be subject to the new surcharge. The Department of Finance had also published a list<\/a> of nearly 1 million properties it considered in assessing the new tax.<\/p>\n

Property owners in the initial lawsuit \u2014 including the wife and father of Councilmember Frank Morano, a Staten Island Republican \u2014 accused the Mamdani administration of sowing \u201cmass confusion\u201d by publishing the list of publicly available records.<\/p>\n

Their attorney Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor under Mamdani\u2019s predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, hailed the ruling in a written statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is that this administration failed to follow state law when it burdened New York City homeowners with proving they live in their own homes or be on the hook for paying a new surcharge,\u201d Mastro said.<\/p>\n

The city must now issue new notices to owners subject to the tax, pending an appeal of Ozzi\u2019s decision. Ozzi ruled that the city must disclose what records it used to make the determination that a home is a \u201cnon-primary residence.”<\/p>\n

In the separate lawsuit filed against New York state on Monday in Suffolk County, Wynn, Ross and Ross\u2019 wife Hilary Geary Ross challenged the new pied-\u00e0-terre tax on constitutional grounds.<\/p>\n

They say they already pay \u201csignificant\u201d property taxes to the city and use fewer services than full-time residents. All three live full-time in Florida and own real estate in the five boroughs, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

The Rosses received a notice stating that they owe the city an additional $83,531.52 in taxes on their New York City co-op due to the surcharge, while Wynn owes an extra $183,094.69 for a property he owns in Manhattan, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n

City Hall spokesperson Matt Rauschenbach said the city will intervene in the lawsuit against the state to defend the new tax, which officials say could raise $500 million a year. He did not immediately respond to questions about the judge\u2019s order in the Staten Island case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pied-\u00e0-terre surcharge demands that the wealthiest people who own second homes in NYC but don\u2019t live in them pay their fair share towards funding safer streets, cleaner parks, and better schools,\u201d Rauschenbach said. \u201cAnd while the legal process moves forward, we will continue administering the surcharge fairly, efficiently and in full compliance with the law, as we have done from day one.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York State lawmakers enacted the pied-\u00e0-terre tax as part of the state\u2019s budget in May. The city\u2019s Department of Finance is tasked with enforcing the provision. In a court filing last month, a Department of Finance attorney said the agency had already exempted<\/a> 4,000 of the 17,000 homeowners who received notice of the tax.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s spokesperson Jen Goodman said the governor \u201cbelieves some of the wealthiest people in the world, and the powerful interest groups fighting on their behalf, can afford to help pay for the police officers, trash pickup and snow removal that keep New York City running.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cWhen Steve Wynn and Wilbur Ross try to cast themselves as sympathetic figures in a fight over paying their fair share on multimillion-dollar second homes, they\u2019re making the case for the pied-\u00e0-terre tax as well as anyone could.”<\/p>\n

This is a developing story and may be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s attempt to levy a new tax on luxury second homes faced new legal headwinds Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-360092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","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\/360092","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=360092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}