Key Points

  • The Appellate Term, First Department, affirmed a Civil Court order awarding attorneys' fees to respondents who prevailed on a succession defense in a holdover proceeding.
  • The court held that the ninth and sixteenth paragraphs of the lease were broad enough to trigger the tenants' reciprocal right to attorneys' fees under Real Property Law Section 234.
  • Applying ejusdem generis, the court held that the HSTPA's amendment of RPAPL 702(1) limits what may be recovered as rent in a summary proceeding and does not bar a tenant's counterclaim for attorneys' fees.
  • The court reasoned that the HSTPA amended RPL 234(1) only to bar landlord fee recoveries on default judgments, left RPAPL 743 and CCA 208 unchanged, and should not be read to impliedly repeal a tenant right more than half a century old.

A New York appeals court ruled that the state's 2019 rent law did not take away tenants' right to recover their legal fees from landlords in Housing Court, rejecting a landlord's argument that the law bars a tenant's counterclaim for attorneys' fees.

The Appellate Term, First Department, on Oct. 27 affirmed a Civil Court order awarding attorneys' fees to Orlando De La Cruz and the other respondents in a holdover proceeding brought by 207-209 West 107th Street, LLC. The respondents defeated the case on a succession defense.

Justices Tisch, Perez and Alpert decided the appeal unanimously in a per curiam opinion.

At issue was language that the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019, known as the HSTPA, added to Section 702(1) of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law. The panel held that the language limits what a landlord may collect as rent in a summary proceeding and does not reach a tenant's counterclaim for fees. Such counterclaims, the court wrote, "are ubiquitous in Housing Court."

The appeal came from an order dated June 18, 2026, in which Judge Yekaterina Blinova of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County, granted the respondents' motion for attorneys' fees after they prevailed on the succession defense.

The panel first held that the tenants had a basis for fees under their lease. The ninth and sixteenth paragraphs of the lease, the court wrote, "were sufficiently broad to trigger a reciprocal right to attorneys' fees in respondents' favor" under Section 234 of the Real Property Law. The panel cited Graham Ct. Owner's Corp. v. Taylor, a 2014 decision that was affirmed in 2015.

The landlord argued that the HSTPA's amendment of Section 702(1) barred the tenants' counterclaim. As amended, the provision defines rent as "the monthly or weekly amount charged in consideration for the use and occupation of a dwelling pursuant to a written or oral rental agreement." It then provides that "[n]o fees, charges or penalties other than rent may be sought in a summary proceeding pursuant to this article, notwithstanding any language to the contrary in any lease or rental agreement."

"We disagree with petitioner's contention that this amendment bars respondents' counterclaim for attorneys' fees," the panel wrote.

The court acknowledged that the words barring fees, charges and penalties "may be capable of a wider significance if found alone." But it applied the principle of ejusdem generis. Quoting McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York, the panel wrote that the principle "requires the court to limit general language of a statute by specific phrases which have preceded the general language."

Under that rule, the court held, the bar on fees is limited by the sentence that comes right before it, the one that "redefines 'rent' for purposes of a summary proceeding." "Properly construed, RPAPL § 702 (1) is a limitation on what can be recovered as 'rent' in a summary proceeding," the panel wrote. "This provision does not preclude a tenant from counterclaiming for attorneys' fees."

The panel then turned to the history of the tenant's fee right. The court wrote that a prevailing tenant's statutory right under Section 234 to "counterclaim in any ... summary proceeding" for fees "has been in existence for more than half a century."

"Manifestly, if the legislature intended so consequential a change as to deny tenants of this statutory right, such intent would have been expressed in plain words and not left to implication," the panel wrote.

The court also wrote that "the absence of an express provision in HSTPA amending or repealing RPL § 234's express allowance of a counterclaim for attorneys' fees gives rise to a presumption that repeal was not intended."

The panel pointed to what the 2019 law did change. The HSTPA amended Section 234(1) only to bar landlords from recovering attorneys' fees on a default judgment, the court wrote. "Critically, HSTPA did not eliminate RPL § 234 (1)'s allowance of attorneys' fees to tenants by way of a counterclaim in a summary proceeding," the decision said.

Nor did the law amend Section 743 of the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law, which the court said allows a respondent to file an answer that includes any legal defense or counterclaim. It also left untouched Section 208 of the New York City Civil Court Act, which the court said gives Civil Court jurisdiction over monetary counterclaims in a summary proceeding.

Citing Rockaway One Co., LLC v. Wiggins, a 2006 decision, the panel concluded that "it is presumed that the Legislature did not intend to overturn long established rules of law" that let tenants counterclaim for legal fees in summary proceedings.

The panel affirmed Judge Blinova's order with $10 costs, leaving the fee award in place. The decision does not state the amount of the fees. It carries the citation 2026 NY Slip Op 26192 and remains subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.