Your landlord has to make repairs. Here is how to make that happen.

REAL PROPERTY LAW § 235-b · RPL § 223-b

The warranty of habitability is in every New York lease.

Real Property Law § 235-b puts an implied warranty into every residential lease in New York, written or oral, rent-stabilized or market-rate, Manhattan or Massena. The landlord warrants that the apartment and the building's common areas are fit for human habitation and for the uses reasonably intended, and that tenants will not be subjected to conditions that are dangerous, hazardous, or detrimental to life, health, or safety.

Two things make this warranty unusually strong. First, it is statewide: the same rule binds a landlord in Buffalo and a landlord in Brooklyn. Second, it cannot be waived. Section 235-b says that any lease clause purporting to waive or modify the warranty is void as against public policy. If your lease says you took the apartment "as is" or that the landlord has no duty to repair, that sentence has no legal effect.

The warranty does not make the landlord an insurer of perfection. Cosmetic complaints, a slow drip you never reported, or a condition you caused yourself will not support a claim. But a landlord who knows about a condition that affects health or safety and does not fix it within a reasonable time is in breach, and breach has consequences: rent abatement, court-ordered repairs, and in some cases damages.

What counts as a habitability problem.

Courts and housing agencies treat these as the core of the warranty:

• No heat or hot water. The most common and most clear-cut breach. NYC has specific temperature rules during heat season; see no heat or hot water in NYC.
• Water leaks and mold. A leaking ceiling, a wall that stays wet, or visible mold growth. See mold and leaks your landlord will not fix.
• Pests. Roaches, mice, rats, and bedbugs. In NYC, landlords of multiple dwellings have an affirmative duty to keep the building free of pests, not just to react to complaints.
• Broken locks, doors, and windows. A front door that does not lock, a broken apartment door lock, or a window that will not close in winter are security and safety conditions, not cosmetics.
• Elevators. An elevator out of service for weeks in a walk-up-impossible building is a habitability issue, especially for elderly or disabled tenants.
• Electrical and plumbing failures. Exposed wiring, no working outlets in a room, a toilet that does not flush, sewage backups.
• Lead paint and structural hazards. Peeling lead paint where a child under six lives, collapsing ceilings, unsafe stairs.

Conditions that fall short of this list, such as a scuffed floor, a slow-closing cabinet, or a paint job you dislike, may still be lease violations, but they are not warranty breaches and a rent abatement claim built on them will fail.

Start with written notice. Always.

Nearly every repairs dispute we see was reported by phone, by text to the super, or in person in the lobby. None of that is useful evidence six months later. Before anything else, give your landlord written notice of the condition: email or a letter, dated, describing the problem specifically, with photos attached, asking for repair by a reasonable date. Keep a copy.

Written notice matters for three reasons. The landlord's obligation to repair is generally measured from when they knew or should have known about the condition, so the notice date starts the clock. A rent abatement is calculated over the period of the breach, and the notice is your anchor for when that period began. And if the matter reaches Housing Court, a judge will ask what you did to tell the landlord; a dated email answers the question in one line.

If the landlord responds with promises and no action, send a second notice that references the first. You are building a record, and the record is what gives every later step its weight.

The ladder: from notice to court.

Think of the remedies as rungs, climbed in order. Skipping rungs is where tenants get hurt.

1. Written notice to the landlord. Covered above. Give a real deadline, usually seven to fourteen days depending on severity; a no-heat complaint in January deserves 24 hours.
2. Code enforcement complaint. In New York City, call 311 or file online; HPD (the Department of Housing Preservation and Development) inspects and, if the condition is confirmed, issues a violation with a legal correction deadline. Outside the city, your town, village, or county code enforcement office plays the same role. See HPD complaint vs. demand letter for how the violation classes work, and repairs outside NYC for the rest of the state.
3. Attorney demand letter. A letter from a New York attorney citing RPL § 235-b, reciting your notice history and any open violations, and demanding repair by a date plus a stated rent abatement for the period already elapsed. More on what this adds below.
4. Rent abatement claim or HP action. An abatement is a percentage reduction in rent for the period the apartment was impaired; see how rent abatement works. An HP action is a case you file in Housing Court asking a judge to order the repairs. Both can run at once.
5. Repair-and-deduct. New York recognizes that a tenant can, in limited circumstances, make a necessary repair and deduct the reasonable cost from rent. The limits are real: the repair must be necessary, the landlord must have had notice and a fair chance to act, the cost must be reasonable, and you must keep every receipt. Do it wrong and you have simply underpaid rent.
6. Withholding rent. The last rung, and the most dangerous one.

Withholding rent: the honest version.

Tenants hear that they can "withhold rent until the landlord fixes it." That is half true and the missing half is where people lose their apartments. The warranty of habitability is a defense and a counterclaim in a nonpayment proceeding: if your landlord sues you for unpaid rent, you can prove the conditions and ask the court to reduce what you owe. But the landlord controls whether and when that proceeding is brought, you will be the respondent, and you will generally be expected to deposit or pay the rent into court while the case goes on. If a judge finds the conditions were less serious than you believed, you owe the full arrears, plus the risk of an eviction judgment if you cannot pay.

Withholding also gives a landlord a talking point: the tenant who stopped paying. That framing hurts in court and hurts in settlement. Our practice is to advise against withholding without a lawyer involved, and to prefer a path where you keep paying, document the breach, and pursue the abatement affirmatively. If you are going to withhold, set the money aside in a separate account, every dollar, so it can be produced in court the day it is needed.

What an attorney demand letter does here.

A repairs demand letter is not a complaint form with a signature. It is a formal statement from counsel that the landlord is in breach of RPL § 235-b, that the breach began on a specific date established by your notices, that a specific abatement is owed, and that the tenant is prepared to pursue an HP action and abatement claim if repairs are not completed by a deadline. It typically references open HPD or code violations by number, which converts your complaint from a disagreement into a matter of public record.

Why does that move landlords who ignored four emails? Because an attorney letter signals that the cost of inaction just went up. A landlord facing an HP action will spend money on a lawyer and may face civil penalties on top of the repair cost. Offering to resolve the matter for the repair and a reasonable abatement is usually cheaper, and a well-drafted letter makes that arithmetic obvious. Letters are also what professional management companies and their counsel are built to respond to; a tenant email often never reaches anyone with authority, while a letter from a law firm does.

A letter is not the right tool in every case. If you have no heat tonight, call 311 first; HPD's emergency repair program moves faster than any correspondence. If the landlord is an absentee owner with a building in foreclosure, the practical path may be a 7-A proceeding or an HP action where a judge, not a letter, compels action. And if you have not yet given written notice yourself, do that first; the letter is stronger when it can recite your history. We send these on a flat fee through DemandLetterNY; the overview of how our letters work is at flat-fee demand letters.

Retaliation is illegal, and your deposit is protected too.

Tenants worry that complaining will get them a non-renewal or an eviction. Real Property Law § 223-b prohibits a landlord from retaliating against a tenant for making a good-faith complaint to a government agency about code or habitability conditions, for taking action to enforce rights under the lease or the warranty of habitability, or for participating in a tenants' organization. The statute creates a presumption of retaliation where the landlord serves a notice to quit, refuses to renew, or substantially alters the terms of the tenancy within one year of a protected complaint, and the landlord must then prove a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason. The presumption does not apply to owner-occupied buildings with fewer than four units.

Retaliation protection is not a guarantee of renewal, and landlords can still proceed for nonpayment or genuine lease violations. But it means a documented complaint history is a shield, not a liability, and an attorney letter will typically put the landlord on notice of § 223-b at the same time it demands repairs.

One related point on security deposits. Repairs disputes often end with a move-out, and the landlord who would not fix the leak is frequently the landlord who then keeps the deposit. New York's General Obligations Law requires residential deposits to be returned within fourteen days after you vacate, with an itemized statement for any amount withheld, and a landlord who fails to do that can forfeit the right to keep any of it. Keep your repair notices and photos; they are also your evidence that the damage was pre-existing or caused by the landlord's neglect. If the deposit is not back in fourteen days, a security deposit demand letter is the next step.

Read next.

• No heat or hot water in NYC: heat season rules, temperatures, and the 311 process.
• Mold and leaks your landlord won't fix: documenting, health, and Local Law 55.
• Rent abatement under the warranty of habitability: how the percentage is set and how to demand it.
• HPD complaint vs. demand letter: violation classes, HP actions, and why tenants use both.
• Landlord repairs outside NYC: Long Island, Westchester, and upstate.
• New York small claims court guide: for abatement claims after you have moved out.