Big Apple homeowners scored an early courtroom victory Monday after a judge blocked Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s chaotic rollout of New York City’s new luxury second home tax, as reported by The New York Post.
The temporary ruling puts the socialist mayor’s prized levy on ice while furious property owners press their case.
Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi issued a temporary restraining order preventing the city from acting on 17,000 notices mailed by the Department of Finance.
The pause will remain in place until at least an August 31 hearing.
Those notices warned homeowners that they could face tax bills reaching five figures unless they applied for exemptions.
For residents suddenly ordered to prove their homes are actually their homes, City Hall’s concept of fairness apparently came with paperwork and a deadline.
Mamdani quickly vowed to challenge the ruling and revive his tax campaign.
His spokesman Matt Rauschenbach insisted, “We disagree with today’s ruling, but we are confident in both the pied à terre surcharge and the City’s ability to implement it fairly and effectively.”
The tax was approved by state lawmakers and Governor Kathy Hochul during the spring.
It applies to one- to three-family homes valued at $5 million or more, along with cooperative apartments and condominiums valued at $1 million or more, when those properties are unoccupied and not primary residences.
The legal setback arrived only hours after Hochul urged Mamdani to clean up the confused rollout.
“We’re not responsible for the rollout,” Hochul told reporters at an unrelated Bronx event, before adding, “We’ll encourage City Hall to try and streamline this.”
That was a convenient bit of distance from a governor who previously championed the tax as a way to make wealthy foreign property owners pay more.
Hochul still supports the levy, but her office now says questions about administering it belong to City Hall and the courts.
The trouble began when city officials published a database containing more than 900,000 homeowners who might be affected.
Mamdani had warned wealthy residents to check their mail, but the sprawling list swept in scores of confused New Yorkers whose properties appeared to fall outside the law.
City Hall then mailed 17,000 notices telling recipients they would be taxed unless they secured exemptions.
Instead of using available state records to identify qualifying properties, the administration effectively shifted the burden onto homeowners and told them to prove their innocence to the tax collectors.
Three homeowners responded with a lawsuit filed Friday, arguing that the bungled process “caused mass confusion.”
They said officials ignored extensive state data that lawmakers had specifically made available for determining which properties could legitimately face the surcharge.
Plaintiffs Rachel O’Brien and Carmine Morano are Staten Island residents whose homes appeared on the published list. Morano is the father of City Councilman Frank Morano, while O’Brien is the councilman’s wife.
The third plaintiff, Chelsea resident and declared Mamdani supporter Simon Hedley, received one of the mailed notices.
His exemption was approved after he uploaded a tax return Saturday, one day after joining the lawsuit, showing that even the mayor’s own supporters can get caught in City Hall’s bureaucratic net.
City attorneys said the Department of Finance had received 3,801 challenges to its initial primary residence determinations.
They argued that pausing the process could delay nearly 8,000 appeals and prevent corrected information from appearing on November tax bills.
Ozzi was not persuaded and temporarily sided with the homeowners.
His order requires the city to remove the online list of roughly 900,000 taxpayers and bars officials from taking further action based on either the database or the mailed notices.
Hedley welcomed the ruling while acknowledging that officials responded quickly after he submitted his documents.
“Hopefully, they can take the opportunity to roll things out a bit more smoothly,” he said regarding the approaching court hearing.
The homeowners are represented by Randy Mastro, who served as first deputy mayor under former Mayor Eric Adams.
Before the ruling, Mamdani joked, “There are a few things more certain in New York City than death, taxes and Randy Mastro filing a lawsuit against this administration.”
This time, however, Mastro delivered a clear setback to City Hall.
“We are very gratified by the judge’s decision, which has vindicated the rights of hundreds of thousands of New York City homeowners who were subjected to a process they never should have been a part of in the first place,” he said.
