The COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act

Don’t have an attorney and need to submit your COVID-19 hardship to stay a foreclosure action or eviction proceeding? See the forms on the NYS courts website.

On December 28, 2020, Governor Cuomo signed into law the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 (L. 2020, c. 381; “Act”).  The Act provides immediate relief to respondents and defendants in residential eviction proceedings and foreclosure actions in New York State, including, among other things:

  1. Staying pending residential eviction proceedings (“Proceedings”) and residential real property mortgage foreclosure actions (“Actions”) for sixty days.
  2. Staying Proceedings and Actions filed within thirty days of December 28, 2020 for sixty days.
  3. Publishing form “Hardship Declarations” to be used by tenant-respondents in eviction matters and defendant-mortgagors in residential foreclosure actions in reporting financial hardship during or due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  4. Staying Proceedings and Actions until at least May 1, 2021 in Proceedings and Actions where a tenant-respondent or defendant-mortgagor submits a completed Hardship Declaration.