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Metro

New NY law requires landlords to reveal if building has flood risks — similar to lead paint, bedbugs warnings

By
Nolan Hicks
Published June 1, 2023
Updated June 1, 2023, 6:49 p.m. ET

Renters in New York will soon have the right to know whether their home is in a designated flood zone — and if there’s been flood damage — thanks to a state law that kicks in June 21.

The newly-required disclosure will be similar to the information landlords are already required to provide about recent bed bug infestations and the presence of potentially toxic lead paint in buildings built before the substance was banned in the 1970s.

“This is going to make sure that when tenants go to rent a home, they’re made fully aware of the flood risks of the apartment that they are renting so that they can properly protect themselves,” said Assemblyman Bobby Carroll (D-Brooklyn), who sponsored the legislation. “This will make sure that we protect people’s property and lives.”

The law requires the landlords to reveal if their building is in a flood plain, if their unit has flooded recently and to provide information on how to apply for flood insurance to cover damages not already covered by renters insurance.

The new disclosure rule comes after the five boroughs have been socked by a series of devastating storms in recent years, including Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Damaged belongings outside of homes in Queens after flooding due to the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit the city on September 3, 2021.
Damaged belongings outside of homes in Queens after Hurricane Ida hit the city on September 3, 2021. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

City Hall estimated in Sandy’s aftermath in 2014 that as many as 400,000 New Yorkers — roughly the entire population of Staten Island — live in the nearly 72,000 buildings that the federal government places in higher-risk flood plains.

“If you’re moving into a new apartment, you have a right to know if you’re moving into a unit with an elevated flood risk,” said Pat McClellan, the policy director of the New York League of Conservation Voters, which campaigned for the measure. “A lot of people living in garden apartments or first-floor apartments lost everything in Ida and Sandy.”

That tally does not include the roughly 50,000 illegal basement and cellar units identified by city officials after Ida, which the hurricane’s torrential downpours demonstrated are uniquely vulnerable to flooding.

A new state law will require landlords to tell renters if their home is in a designated flood zone or if there has been previous flood damage.
A new state law will require landlords to tell renters if their home is in a designated flood zone or if there has been previous flood damage. Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Gov. Kathy Hochul and City Hall called on Albany lawmakers to create a program that would legalize the units provided improvements are made to improve their safety, but those efforts appear to be going nowhere as the state Senate and Assembly wrap up their work for the year.