RPAPL 721: The Eleven Categories and Standing Limits

RPAPL 721 is the New York statute that lists the eleven categories of people and entities allowed to bring a summary proceeding to recover possession of real property. The list is exhaustive, not illustrative. If your role in the dispute doesn’t match one of the eleven descriptions, the court will dismiss the petition no matter how strong the underlying claim is. The categories are: landlords and their successors; reversioners and remaindermen; purchasers at foreclosure, execution, or tax sales; people forcibly kept out of property; owners who made an occupancy agreement directly; owners facing squatters; owners facing licensees; petitioners in illegal-use cases; court-authorized receivers; lessees entitled to possession; and certain NYC nonprofits and tenant associations operating city-owned housing.

Work through them in order and find the one that fits your situation. If none do, you need a different vehicle than a summary proceeding.

The Eleven Categories

1. Landlord or Lessor

The most common petitioner. The landlord-tenant relationship can rest on a written lease, a verbal agreement, or an implied arrangement shown by conduct like regular rent payments.¹ Successors to the landlord’s interest also qualify. When a landlord dies, the executor or administrator of the estate steps in, and RPAPL 711 specifically allows “any person succeeding to the landlord’s interest” to pursue nonpayment proceedings for rent owed to the predecessor.² A fiduciary’s authority is documented through letters testamentary or letters of administration from Surrogate’s Court.

2. Reversioner or Remainderman

If someone held a life estate that has ended (usually because the life tenant died), the person whose ownership interest kicks in next can evict a holdover tenant of the former life tenant.¹ Until the life estate terminates, the remainderman has only a future interest and no standing. Once it terminates, the holdover’s permission to occupy vanishes with it.

3. Purchaser at Foreclosure, Execution, or Tax Sale

Three types of purchasers qualify: buyers at an execution sale (satisfying a court judgment), buyers at a foreclosure sale (satisfying a mortgage), and buyers at a tax sale.¹ Any subsequent grantee, heir, or beneficiary who receives title through one of these purchasers also has standing.

The trigger differs by sale type. For execution and foreclosure sales, standing follows from the completed sale itself. For tax sales, a deed must have been executed and delivered first. A foreclosure buyer with a referee’s deed can file; a tax sale buyer without a delivered deed cannot.

4. Person Forcibly Put Out or Kept Out

Anyone forcibly removed from property, or prevented from entering it, can file.¹ This is the statute’s remedy for lockouts and self-help evictions: changed locks, physical barring, belongings put on the curb. The petitioner doesn’t have to be an owner or landlord. Standing rests on the wrongful conduct of the occupant, not on a pre-existing property interest.

5. Owner With a Direct Occupancy Agreement

This category covers the owner who personally entered into an occupancy agreement with the respondent, and it also reaches sharecropping arrangements where someone cultivates land for a share of the harvest.¹ The occupancy agreement branch remains practically important for arrangements that don’t fit neatly into a traditional landlord-tenant framework.

6. Owner Facing a Squatter or Intruder

The person lawfully entitled to possess property that has been squatted on or intruded into can file.¹ This works together with RPAPL 713, which permits a special proceeding after a ten-day notice to quit where someone has entered without permission.³ What separates this from a standard holdover is that no landlord-tenant relationship ever existed.

7. Owner Facing a Licensee

A licensee is someone with permission to be on the property but no lease or tenancy: a family member staying under informal consent, a person using space under a revocable personal arrangement. The owner revokes the license, and if the licensee refuses to leave, the owner has standing to file.¹ Because a license (unlike a lease) creates no possessory estate, revocation ends the permission and opens the door to a proceeding.

8. Petitioner in an Illegal-Use Case

Proceedings to remove people using premises for illegal purposes can be brought by the landlord or property owner, and also by corporations and law enforcement agencies authorized under Article 7 of the RPAPL.¹ The expanded list of who can file reflects the public interest in shutting down drug operations and similar criminal activity even where the property owner won’t act. A landlord can also use this ground strategically when the underlying facts fit, as it can move faster than a standard lease-violation holdover.

9. Court-Appointed Receiver

A receiver of a landlord, purchaser, or other authorized person has standing — but only when the appointing court has specifically authorized the receiver to bring the proceeding.¹ Without that specific authorization spelled out in the order of appointment, the receiver lacks standing regardless of how badly the property needs clearing.

10. Lessee Entitled to Possession

The most common application is the master tenant. Someone who leases an entire building or unit and sublets portions to others can remove holdover subtenants without involving the building owner.¹ It also covers a lessee who needs to remove someone who entered without the lessee’s permission, such as a roommate who won’t leave after the arrangement ends. The lessee’s own lease must be valid and current.

11. NYC Nonprofits and Tenant Associations for City-Owned Housing

The narrowest category. Not-for-profit corporations and tenant associations can bring summary proceedings only when authorized in writing by the New York City commissioner responsible for enforcing the housing maintenance code, and only to manage residential property owned by the city.¹ Outside of that specific setup, the subsection has no application.

Standing Isn’t Always Enough

Fitting into one of the eleven categories gets you through the courtroom door. It doesn’t override federal protections that can pause, delay, or restructure the proceeding after it’s filed.

Foreclosure Purchasers and the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act

A foreclosure purchaser’s standing under RPAPL 721 doesn’t automatically translate into a right to remove every occupant. The federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act requires the new owner to give any qualifying tenant at least 90 days’ notice before eviction.⁴ If the tenant has a lease predating the foreclosure notice, the new owner generally must honor the remaining lease term, unless the purchaser intends to occupy the unit as a primary residence, in which case the 90-day notice still applies but the lease can be terminated early.

The tenant has to be “bona fide” to qualify: not the borrower or the borrower’s child, spouse, or parent; the lease resulted from an arm’s-length transaction; and the rent is not substantially below fair market value, unless the discount comes from a government subsidy.⁴ A sweetheart deal between the borrower and a family member won’t qualify.

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act

Under 50 U.S.C. § 3951, a landlord cannot evict an active-duty servicemember or the servicemember’s dependents from a primary residence without a court order, as long as the monthly rent falls below a threshold that is adjusted annually for housing-cost inflation.⁵ If the servicemember’s ability to pay rent has been materially affected by military service, the court must stay the proceeding for at least 90 days on request, and it can adjust the lease terms to balance both parties’ interests. Knowingly evicting a protected servicemember without a court order is a federal misdemeanor.

Bankruptcy Automatic Stay

When a tenant files for bankruptcy, the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 generally halts eviction proceedings. There’s an important exception: if the landlord already obtained a judgment for possession before the bankruptcy petition was filed, the landlord can typically continue with the eviction without seeking relief from the stay.⁶ A tenant can try to block that by certifying to the bankruptcy court that state law allows curing the default and depositing the rent owed, but the landlord can object and force a hearing. Without a pre-petition judgment, the stay generally applies and the landlord must ask the bankruptcy court to lift it.

After You Confirm Standing

RPAPL 721 answers who can file. It doesn’t answer why or how. The grounds for the proceeding come from RPAPL 711 (for people with a landlord-tenant relationship, covering nonpayment and various holdover situations) or RPAPL 713 (for people without a landlord-tenant relationship, covering squatters, licensees, foreclosure occupants, and others) — the section that matches your standing category.²³ Service then has to comply with RPAPL 735, and courts scrutinize service closely; improper service is one of the most common reasons a summary proceeding collapses before the merits are ever reached.⁷

1
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Section 721 – Person Who May Maintain Proceeding
2
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Section 711 – Grounds for the Proceeding
3
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Section 713
4
GovInfo. Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3951 – Evictions and Distress
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay
7
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law Section 735