A trio of Big Apple homeowners have filed suit to delay the state’s controversial new tax on luxury second homes — claiming Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration bungled the rollout.
The group of disgruntled owners charge City Hall is unfairly burdening them to prove they are full-time New Yorkers, and as such, not subject to the pied-à-terre tax, according to the suit filed Friday in Staten Island Supreme Court.
The city Department of Finance “has arbitrarily and capriciously foisted onto New York City residents the burden of proving they are not subject to the Surcharge,” the filing states.
It specifically calls out the DOF’s move to publish a tax roll of nearly 1 million properties that may be subject to the new surcharge and the 17,000 notices it mailed to homeowners warning them they would be hit with five-figure bills unless they filed for an exemption.
The city ignored its statutory obligation to do its homework first “to diligently assess and determine, using the vast resources at its disposal, the properties that are actually subject to the Surcharge,” the suit charges.
While the suit doesn’t challenge the law itself, it demands that a judge declare the city’s actions illegal and immediately scrub the 900,000-name list from the DOF website.
It also requests an emergency injunction to void the 17,000 mailed notices and relieve homeowners from having to respond. The Mamdani administration last weekend extended the deadline to file for an exemption to Sept. 18, from the end of August.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorney Randy Mastro, who served as first deputy mayor under Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams.
