What Is a 10 Day Notice to Cure in New York?

A 10-day notice to cure in New York is a written warning from a landlord telling a tenant they have violated a non-monetary term of the lease and have exactly 10 days to fix it before the landlord can take the next step toward eviction. If you correct the problem inside that window, the process stops and your lease continues as if nothing happened.¹ Unpaid rent is handled through a separate nonpayment process, so a notice to cure is never about money owed.

What Kinds of Violations Trigger One

Notices to cure target conduct or property-use problems, not late rent. The usual grounds include keeping a pet when the lease forbids pets, subletting or short-term-renting the apartment without written consent, persistent noise that disturbs other residents, making physical alterations the landlord didn’t approve, and running a business out of a residential unit when the lease prohibits it.

The alleged breach has to be substantial enough that it could realistically justify ending the tenancy. A one-off minor incident rarely qualifies. Landlords also cannot invent violations or try to enforce rules you never agreed to in writing as a way to push you out.¹

Some conduct skips the cure period entirely. Under the Good Cause Eviction Law, nuisance behavior — conduct that causes substantial, malicious, or grossly negligent damage, or that seriously interferes with the safety and comfort of the landlord or other residents — allows the landlord to move straight to termination. Using the apartment for illegal activity can also bypass the cure process, but the landlord must show habitual or customary illegal use, not one or two isolated incidents.¹ The Rent Stabilization Code uses similar standards for rent-stabilized units.

What the Notice Must Say

A defective notice can sink the whole eviction case. New York courts treat predicate notices as jurisdictional, meaning a judge cannot hear a case built on a bad one. Check your notice for:

The specific lease provision allegedly violated, cited by paragraph or section rather than a generic reference to “the lease.”
A clear factual description of what you supposedly did. “Excessive noise” is not enough; dates, times, locations, and specific conduct are.
A cure deadline of at least 10 days from the date of service, stated as an actual calendar date.
Full names of every adult on the lease.
A full description of the premises — apartment number, address, borough or city.

Vagueness is the most common defect. Notices built on phrases like “violation of house rules” or “improper use of premises” regularly fail in housing court because the tenant has no real way to know what to fix.

How It Has to Be Delivered

Even a well-drafted notice fails if service is wrong. The accepted methods generally mirror those for court papers:²

Personal delivery, handing the notice directly to the tenant.
Substituted service on a person of suitable age and discretion at the apartment, followed by mailing a copy by both registered or certified mail and regular first-class mail within one day.
Conspicuous-place service — affixing the notice to the door or sliding it under after a reasonable attempt to find someone home — followed by the same two mailings within one day.

Whoever delivers it has to complete an affidavit of service recording the date, time, method, and details.³ That document becomes evidence later. A missing or sloppy affidavit can end the case before the merits are heard.

What To Do During the 10 Days

Take the notice seriously the moment it arrives, even if the claim feels petty or wrong. Ignoring it does not make it disappear; it only moves the landlord closer to court.

Fix the Problem

The cleanest path is to cure within the window. Remove the unauthorized pet, end the sublet, reverse the alteration, stop the conduct identified in the notice. If you cure before the deadline, the process ends and the lease continues.¹ Document what you did and when — photographs, receipts, written confirmations — so you can prove it if the landlord later disputes the cure.

Ask for More Time in Writing

Some violations genuinely cannot be fixed in 10 days. Rehoming a pet or undoing a permanent alteration takes longer than that. Ask the landlord in writing for additional time, and get any agreement in writing too. A verbal extension is worth little if the landlord later says you missed the deadline. There is no statutory right to an extension, but many landlords will agree to a reasonable one when you show good-faith effort.

Get Legal Help Early

In New York City, income-eligible tenants facing eviction have a right to a free attorney through the city’s Right to Counsel program. Tenants at or below 200% of the federal poverty level qualify for full representation; those above that threshold can get a legal consultation. The right applies regardless of case type, immigration status, or housing type. Outside the city, free legal aid organizations exist in most counties, though representation is not guaranteed. Getting a lawyer involved before the 10 days run out is the best way to spot defects in the notice itself.

Dispute It

If you believe the claim is fabricated, exaggerated, or doesn’t actually breach the lease, you can let the deadline pass and fight it in court. This is risky. If the landlord serves a termination notice and files a holdover petition, you will have to defend yourself in housing court. Some violations are genuinely contestable — an “unauthorized occupant” claim based on a guest staying a few nights, for example — and courts do scrutinize whether the alleged breach is real and substantial.

If the Window Closes Without a Cure

The landlord does not go straight to court. The next step is a Notice of Termination, a separate document stating that the lease is being ended and giving a specific move-out date.⁴ This notice offers no new chance to fix anything.

The required notice period depends on how long you’ve lived there. Month-to-month tenants are entitled to at least 30 days, with the termination date falling on the last day of a rental period. Tenants of one to two years may be entitled to 60 days, and those with two or more years to 90.⁴ The Notice of Termination must be served with the same formality as the original notice to cure.

A Notice of Termination is not the same as a Notice to Quit. A Notice to Quit is used against someone the landlord says has no right to be in the apartment at all, like a squatter. A Notice of Termination ends an existing tenancy.⁴

If you stay past the termination date, the landlord can file a holdover petition in housing court. You can answer the petition at your first court date, either orally to the judge or in writing. Failing to appear risks a default judgment, which is an automatic loss. Many holdover cases settle through a stipulation — a written agreement to stop the violation, move out by a certain date, or take other specific action — before reaching trial.⁵

A Second Chance to Cure in Court

Here is something most tenants do not know. Even if the landlord wins a holdover case based on a lease violation, the court must grant a 30-day stay before the warrant of eviction can issue, and during that stay you can still correct the breach.⁶ This protection sits in RPAPL § 753 and applies even if the original 10-day period expired long ago. Fix the problem during this 30-day window and no warrant issues; the tenancy survives. This is the last off-ramp before eviction becomes unavoidable.

Execution of the Warrant

If you don’t cure during the 30-day stay and don’t move out, a city marshal or sheriff executes the warrant. The officer must give at least 14 days’ written notice before carrying out the eviction, which can only happen on a business day during daylight hours.⁷ Officers are also required to check for pets and arrange care before carrying it out.

Who’s Actually Covered

The 10-day cure is a statutory right for tenants covered by New York’s Good Cause Eviction Law, codified in Real Property Law Article 6-A, which took effect in 2024. It applies in New York City and a growing list of other municipalities including Albany, Rochester, Ithaca, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Beacon, Newburgh, Binghamton, Hudson, Nyack, New Paltz, Fishkill, Catskill, and Croton-on-Hudson.¹

Several categories fall outside Good Cause coverage, including tenants of small landlords (in NYC, those owning 10 or fewer units statewide), owner-occupied buildings with 10 or fewer units (4 in Albany), rent-regulated units, apartments renting above the high-rent threshold published annually by the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, buildings with a certificate of occupancy issued after January 1, 2009, subletters, condos, co-ops, income-restricted housing, employee housing, manufactured homes, and school dormitories.¹

If you fall outside Good Cause, your right to a cure period depends on your lease and what a court finds reasonable. Even so, most landlords still serve a notice to cure for lease violations because courts expect it as a procedural prerequisite to a holdover case.⁴

Rent-Stabilized Tenants

Rent-stabilized tenants are exempt from Good Cause but have equivalent protection under the Rent Stabilization Code, which also requires written notice identifying the substantial lease obligation violated and gives 10 days to cure. A willful violation causing serious and substantial injury to the landlord can bypass that period, but routine issues rarely clear the bar. Rent-stabilized tenants should consult counsel promptly, because the procedural protections are strong and landlords who cut corners often lose the whole case.

Military Servicemembers

Active-duty servicemembers and their dependents have added federal protection under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. A landlord cannot evict a servicemember from a primary residence without a court order when the monthly rent falls below an annually adjusted threshold (originally $2,400 in 2003, adjusted upward for inflation since). If military service has materially affected the servicemember’s ability to pay rent, the court must stay the proceeding for 90 days on request, with discretion to extend. A landlord who knowingly evicts a protected servicemember without a court order faces criminal penalties, including up to one year in jail.⁸

Why Curing Early Matters More Than You Think

Even a holdover case that ends favorably can follow you. Once the landlord files, the filing becomes a court record. Tenant screening companies compile these filings and feed them into reports future landlords review. Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, civil judgments cannot appear on a credit report more than seven years after entry, and other adverse information follows the same seven-year limit.⁹

The practical impact is often worse than the legal limit suggests. Private screening services pick up court filings, not just judgments, and a filing alone can trigger rejections even when the case was dismissed or settled in your favor. Curing within the original 10-day window prevents any of this from starting, which is the strongest reason to act on a notice to cure the moment it hits your door. If a case has already been filed and resolved, pull your screening reports afterward and dispute any inaccurate entries directly with the reporting company.

1
New York State Attorney General. New York State Good Cause Eviction Law
2
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Law 232-A – Notice to Terminate Monthly Tenancy or Tenancy From Month to Month in the City of New York
3
New York State Unified Court System. Affidavit of Personal Service
4
New York Courts. Holdover Notices
5
New York Courts. Tenant’s Guide – Holdover Eviction Case
6
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 753
7
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law 749 – Warrant
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3951 – Evictions and Distress
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681c – Requirements Relating to Information Contained in Consumer Reports