RPAPL 753 is the New York statute that lets a housing court judge delay an eviction from a residence for up to one year after the landlord has already won a judgment for possession. It applies only to dwellings, requires the tenant to show extreme hardship and keep paying into court, and includes a separate automatic 30-day window to cure a lease violation that triggered a holdover case.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes Hotels, lodging houses, rooming houses, and commercial spaces are outside its reach.
Who Can Ask for a Hardship Stay
Three conditions have to line up. The property has to be used as a dwelling. The request has to be made in good faith. And refusing it has to cause extreme hardship to the tenant or the tenant’s family.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes
Good faith means you have genuinely tried to find somewhere comparable in the same neighborhood and failed. Judges want evidence, not assertions. Printed listings you responded to, applications you submitted, emails and call logs with brokers, notes from apartment visits. A tenant who argues the market is tight without showing a personal search will usually be denied.
Hardship is the heavier lift. The statute tells courts to weigh serious illness, worsening of an existing medical condition, a child enrolled in a nearby school, and other circumstances that affect the family’s ability to move while keeping a decent quality of life.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes The catch-all gives judges room, but ordinary inconvenience will not clear the bar. The question the court is really asking is whether an immediate move would cause real suffering.
One category of case is out of scope entirely. Transient and short-term occupants of hotels, lodging houses, and rooming houses cannot use 753. Neither can commercial tenants or professional offices.
How Long the Stay Lasts and What You Have to Pay
Twelve months is the ceiling. Before the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, it was six, and the discretionary stay did not reach nonpayment cases statewide. The 2019 law doubled the maximum and extended the stay to nonpayment proceedings as well as holdovers.2New York State Senate. New Rights for Tenants – Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019
A full year is rarely the number you actually get. Judges weigh the tenant’s hardship against the landlord’s financial picture. A landlord facing foreclosure may convince the court to grant only a few months. A tenant with a severe disability and no realistic alternatives may get closer to the full year. Many judges grant shorter stays with return dates on the calendar, extending incrementally if the tenant stays current and keeps searching.
The stay is conditioned on payment. The court orders the tenant to deposit money with the court for use and occupancy during the delay. The baseline is whatever the tenant was paying as rent in the month before the lease or tenancy ended, and the judge can add an amount reflecting the difference between that rent and the current fair market value of the unit if those numbers differ.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes These are not rent payments, because the landlord-tenant relationship ended with the possession judgment.
The judge can also require you to deposit unpaid rent from before the stay, in a lump sum or spread across installments.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes The money goes to the court, not to the landlord.
Miss a deposit and the whole arrangement collapses. The landlord can go back to the judge, ask that the stay be revoked, and have the warrant executed. Treat the deposits with the same urgency as rent. One missed payment can undo months of effort.
The 30-Day Cure Period
Section 753(4) is a separate protection, and it is not discretionary. If you lose a holdover proceeding because of a lease violation, the court must give you 30 days to fix the problem before issuing a warrant.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes Correct the breach inside that window and the court vacates the judgment. The lease continues as if nothing happened.
The cure period used to be 10 days. The 2019 reforms tripled it to 30.2New York State Senate. New Rights for Tenants – Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 The protection covers correctable breaches: unauthorized pets, unapproved alterations, and similar lease violations that can actually be undone.
You do not need to show hardship. The only question is whether you fixed the problem, and the burden of proving you did sits with you. Once the court confirms compliance, the eviction stops. This provision operates independently of the hardship stay in 753(1), so a tenant can pursue both if the situation calls for it.
When a Judge Cannot Grant Any Stay
There is one hard limit. If the holdover case is based on the tenant being objectionable, and the landlord proves it with competent evidence, the court loses discretion to grant a stay at all.1New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753 – Stay in Premises Occupied for Dwelling Purposes The statute does not spell out what counts, but courts have applied it to illegal activity on the premises, conduct that threatens other residents’ safety, and repeated behavior that substantially interferes with neighbors’ comfort.
Isolated incidents generally do not meet the standard. The landlord has to build a record, often through police reports, documented complaints from other tenants, or evidence of ongoing lease violations tied to safety. Once that burden is met, personal hardship no longer matters for stay purposes.
How to Request a Stay and Where to Get Help
A stay under 753 is requested in the housing court handling your case, usually by order to show cause or by motion once a possession judgment has been entered. Bring documentation: medical records if illness is part of the hardship, school enrollment paperwork for a child, and a paper trail of your housing search. Be ready to propose a payment amount for use and occupancy, because the court will set one as a condition of any stay it grants.
If you are in New York City, you do not have to do this alone. The city’s right-to-counsel program provides free legal representation to tenants in Housing Court eviction proceedings and NYCHA administrative hearings, regardless of income or immigration status.3NYC Human Resources Administration. Legal Services for Tenants Reach out as early in the case as possible. An attorney who can document hardship, structure the deposit schedule, and argue the cure provision changes the odds of staying in your home, even temporarily.