CRIMINAL HISTORY DISCRIMINATION ALLEGED AT MULTIPLE NYC APARTMENT BUILDINGS
The Fair Housing Justice Center (FHJC) announced today that it has filed a new lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court against Fetner Properties, an owner and manager of six luxury high-rise apartment buildings including The Epic, 266W96, 85 East End, and 501 East 74th in Manhattan, and The Bold and The Italic in Long Island City.
The lawsuit is the first brought by the FHJC under the Fair Chance Act in Housing, a provision of the City’s Human Rights Law that prohibits housing providers from denying housing to an individual based on criminal history, except under limited circumstances and after a stringent notice and explanation process.
Under the new law, which took effect in January 2025, landlords may not conduct a criminal background check on a prospective tenant until after a conditional lease offer has been made. If that background check is conducted, the categories of convictions that landlords may consider as potentially disqualifying are narrowly defined, and largely time limited. Even if the background check shows one of these potentially disqualifying convictions, a conditional offer cannot be automatically revoked—the landlord must first engage in a multi-step, interactive notice and explanation process, and connect the disqualification to a legitimate business purpose. Landlords and their agents are also prohibited from discouraging individuals with criminal histories from applying for an apartment by making statements that misrepresent the requirements of the law.
The complaint stems from a systemic investigation launched by the FHJC earlier this year, in which FHJC testers toured three Fetner properties. The testers at two of the properties subsequently received paperwork stating the company’s policy that it runs a criminal background check for each applicant and will reject an applicant for “any felony conviction” or a broad range of “criminal related reasons.” At the third property, Fetner communicated its blanket policy to automatically reject applicants for “certain felony and misdemeanor offenses.” These policies violate the Fair Chance Act, according to the complaint.
One tester who called a Fetner Leasing Director asking for an explanation of the meaning of the “any felony conviction” language in the policy paperwork that she had received was flatly told that it was “the landlord’s policy” that any applicant with any felony conviction “would not be able to rent here,” the complaint alleges.
The complaint also calls attention to the official websites for all six of Fetner’s rental properties, which all contain the same unlawful policy statement regarding rejecting applicants for “certain felony and misdemeanor offenses.”
The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief to end the discrimination based on criminal history, and affirmative injunctive relief to remedy the harm that Fetner has caused. The full complaint can be read HERE.
“For New Yorkers who have encountered the criminal justice system, finding housing presents a special challenge,” said FHJC Legal Director David Berman. “The Fair Chance Act in Housing is instrumental in helping people with criminal histories rebuild their lives. The FHJC is committed to educating the public about this important new law and ensuring that landlords comply.”
“Having a criminal history should not prevent New Yorkers from accessing safe and stable housing,” added attorney Alice Reiter. “We hope that this lawsuit makes clear that New York City landlords cannot use background checks as vehicles for housing discrimination any longer.”
The FHJC is represented by Ms. Reiter, Mariann Wang, and Maggie Hadley with the law firm Wang Hecker LLP.