Tenants’ groups and left-wing activists are cheering New York City’s newly announced multiyear rent freeze. But Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rent scheme is headed for a judicial smackdown at the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2023 and twice in 2024, a hesitant Supreme Court declined to hear challenges by building owners to New York state’s rent regulations. Lower courts had ruled that the regulations diminished the value of rental properties, but the state had good reasons to balance the rights of owners with the need to protect tenants.
At that time, Justice Clarence Thomas said the constitutionality of New York’s rent regulations is “an important and pressing question,” and he looked forward to a case that clearly demonstrated the government was going too far to take an owner’s property.
Mamdani is giving Thomas what he’s been waiting for — on a silver platter.
Moscow Mamdani’s scheme to deny landlords any rent hikes at all reeks of the kind of expropriation of private property that occurs in Cuba, Venezuela, and other socialist nations. Not in America. It is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.
The Fifth Amendment bars the government from imposing regulations that make a person’s property worthless.
Everyone who owns anything — a home or a business of any sort — should feel threatened by Mamdani’s Bolshevik scheme to deny building owners fair compensation, doom rental properties to rapid decay, and then literally seize their buildings. After landlords, who’s next?
Under the framework established by the New York state legislature, the Rent Guidelines Board must determine allowable rent hikes based on the specific costs landlords incur. But Mamdani’s handpicked RGB members threw the letter of the law out the window.
Fuel costs went up 11% in the last year, and insurance went up 10.5%, but Mamdani’s RGB announced Thursday that landlords will get no increases this year or the next. And, according to Mamdani’s campaign promises, not even in the years after, as long as he is mayor.
Zero rent hikes will cause buildings to rapidly fall into disrepair — just what the new mayor intends. On May 29, he announced that when landlords fail to keep buildings up to code, “we will take aggressive legal action” to “transfer ownership to responsible stewards — stewards that include community land trusts, nonprofits and even the tenants themselves.”
New York law already allows that, but only under extreme circumstances. It applied to fewer than 30 properties in 2024 and generally doesn’t result in permanent confiscation. But Mamdani’s rent freeze will turn many landlords into targets because they’ll lack the revenue to keep apartments up to code. The rent freeze deliberately creates the conditions for widespread confiscation. Building owners get zip.
Think Bolshevik Moscow in 1917, when the communists annulled private property rights, seized buildings and decreed them communal living spaces. Lefties now become the new land barons.
Last Thursday, RGB member Christina Smyth, appointed by former Mayor Eric Adams, resigned in protest just hours before the vote. She said the freeze “was decided last year on the campaign trail,” and she offered to help anyone willing to wage a legal battle. “If so, I will do everything I can to assist them in being successful,” she pledged.
Bring on the fight.
It’s worth noting that a lawsuit already filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against New York City and the RGB also has a significant shot at success.
This suit focuses on the narrow case of what the real estate industry calls “zombie” apartments that cannot be rented because a 2019 state law allows owners to recover only $50,000 for repairs, far less than what it would cost to get apartments up to code. There are currently an estimated 57,000 zombie units, according to the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal, that are sitting vacant and worthless to the owners.
It’s likely to take two or three years for this case or any new challenge to Mamdani’s rent freeze to reach the High Court.
If the justices slap down Mamdani’s rent freeze, the confiscations or any portion of the city’s rent regulatory scheme as an unconstitutional “taking,” as they’re likely to do, Mamdani will have to comply, no matter what the throngs of left-wing tenant advocates shout in the streets.
Everyone in New York who owns anything — a home, a rental property, a diner, a bodega or another business — has a stake in this legal fight. Mamdani’s scheme to seize rental properties is a red flag that all property rights are in peril. He’s going after landlords first, but you could be next.
Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and Chairman & Founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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The only way to “derail” any of Mamdani’s socialist schemes is to get rid of him legally. He is bound to break the law sometime. Unfortunately, NY state is standing by and doing nothing to help. You get what you voted for, and nothing is free.
Commie’s “rent freeze” is just a way to seize private property. Owners cannot raise rents but their upkeep costs keep rising. Their units then develop problems which NYC’s inspectors can cite. If too many things violate the city standards, the city SEIZES it and Voila! the property is now city owned! This is called COMMUNISM!
Mamdani is an evil, Muslim Communist and he needs to be be deported and a danger to our Constitution and our people. What is wrong with the actual Democrats who exist out there? No one is speaking out against this man and his evil politics except John Fetterman. I suppose those who still call themselves Democrats think that Communists taking over our country is better than President Trump and MAGA who love this country and want to keep our Constitutional, Capitalist country intact. Those Democrats are going to be really shocked when they let these Communist rule. They will be sent to work camps and starve to death along with the rest of us!!! Go talk to a person who has escaped a Communist hell-hole and get the real story of Communism and what it brings to people.
They voted for him and the rest of America should not have to pay for his giveaways
Mamdani lied to become a citizen of this nation. He and everyone like him should be stripped of their citizenship and deported for attempting to undermine the U. S. Constitution. And any member of government working to undermine the Constitution should be run out of office on a rail, tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered, beheaded and their head placed on a pike in the public square as a reminder of just who the sovereign is in this nation.
I don’t feel sorry for the people who voted this commie into office. I do regret that one of the greatest American cities is going to crash and burn. Maybe that will make the rest of the country wake up and take notice and never vote for socialists or commies ever again. Alas, I am probably dreaming of a different America where people had a good education and some common sense.
Noo Yawkahs are getting EXACTLY what they deserve under Commie Mondummy. Ignorance, apathy, self-indulgence and willful acceptance of Socialism by NYC’s denizens will soon make the City a pest hole. Millionaires and sensible citizens are fleeing the city like the proverbial rats from a sinking ship leaving the moochers, spongers, Socialists, illegal invaders and their ilk to rot. Good riddance to all those morons, I say!
He is an enemy to our country and should be deported immediately!
If only we could rely on the courts acceptance, that what we have always had in this country, a Capitalist for of governing. Common sense, tenants, as taxes, insurance, and property improvements, costs keep going up, why would a property owner still keep your home liveable? If indeed he cannot recover cost, by a rent increase.
Often, its in the details, and those tenants expecting a free lunch, are in for a rude awakening. I’m not excusing absentee landlords.
Jihad advancing as planned.
Mamdani is a perfect example of elections have consequences. He was pretty up front with his plans so no one can say he lied and then did an about face, but all the “gimme” crowd heard was free, free, free and no due diligence ever happened. Now they are faced with the fact that Mamdani meant what he said about the confiscation part just not so much the “you can live for free” part. But now they are stuck with him because by putting him in office at all voters allowed him to create a cabal to help put forth his communist agenda. Getting around them will be harder than trying to throw Mamdani out of office. I hope this is a wake-up call to the many cities across the nation who are/were planning to follow the Mamdani plan.
NYC denizens, I am aware y’all are just getting started, really, but are you having a gooood time with yer Mayor yet?
He’s Islam All The Way. Taking Is What He’s All About.
If all immigration is ended, a rent freeze will likely succeed.
Leave NYC Now
This move by the Communist mayor of NYC might not be Legal.
So where does Mamdani live? He is the Mayor, but does he have a house or live in a government building? Seems like the No Kings people do not realize there are always Kings, whether they be the Mayors, Governors, or the government people who can pay for whatever they want. I am curious because Newsome is the “king” in CA, yet he and his “first partner” have lots of money they are hiding. She comes from a rich family too. Just seems people have blinders on, because blue or socialist will always have the kings who sit in castles while the people who work for their money will become their subjects and be the people who pay for the kings to live comfortably.
It is a disaster waiting to happen, but if we don’t start teaching history, the country will follow this as the way to fix their frustrations with affordability. Young people are struggling because they can’t afford what previous generations did and I understand why the communists crap sounds good when they have no understanding of history and the colossal failure communism always is.
Eventually, you have nothing and love it!
If people would come out and vote this kind of garbage would not be mayor of nyc. Hes got an entire freak show hes dragging along with him. We can and we must do better than this.
Man dummy and his minions should be forced to reimburse any land owner that looses money under the RBG. The city of NY and the state need to be slapped down hard. The best way for them to feel it is hit their big fat wallets. That the only way to get their attention.
Why do people do this?!! First, forgetting the thousands of deaths at a NYC site? Second, forgetting the thousands of bodies & millions of sacrifices given to us as military efforts to keep this evil out of our lives?!! Do the voters not care about our history or do they not care?
It’s hard to feel sorry for NYC residents. They could stop this in its tracks by going to the polls and voting for a Less Government Candidate.
The terrorists are taking over and we are letting them!
Just have one question where can we find another George McGovern?