The New York Appellate Division, Third Department ruled that it is not discrimination on the basis of lawful source of income (“SOID”) for landlords to refuse to accept Section 8 vouchers. However, the New York Court of Appeals may have the final word.
The New York State Human Rights Law was amended as part of the NY Housing Stability & Tenant Protection Act of 2019 to prohibit the denial of rental housing to people based on their lawful sources of income, including Section 8 vouchers.
New York State Attorney General Letitia James sued Ithaca landlord Jason H. Fane and his affiliated companies for refusing to rent to tenants with Section 8 vouchers in October 2022. A trial court judge ruled on June 28, 2023, that the SOI provisions were unconstitutional. The New York Appellate Division, Third Department on March 5, 2026 upheld the trial court in People vs. Commons West, LLC (Link CV-23-1255.pdf )holding because the prohibition on source-of-income discrimination violates landlords’ Fourth Amendment protections against governmental searches of their property without consent or a warrant. The SOID law indirectly requires landlords to subject their rental units to government inspections, trampling on their Fourth Amendment rights—even if no inspection was executed.
Although the landlord had not been subjected to a state inspection, landlords are, nonetheless, indirectly compelled, through terms of the federal Section 8 program and agreements with local housing authorities, to make their premises and records available for searches. Although no inspections of the property or records have been carried out, a party may challenge the constitutionality of a law when there is a credible threat that the government will enforce it against them. Landlords face a range of consequences for refusing to comply with the SOID law, including mandatory set-asides of their units, ongoing court monitoring, and civil penalties. In addition to searches of their property, the landlords argued that the SOID statute unlawfully gave broad rights for the government to review their computer data, which could be invasive if a housing authority tried to seize personal computers to access rental records, rather than through a subpoena.
To prevent tenant discrimination lawsuits, call or text NY landlord attorneys Robert Friedman and Justin Friedman at 716-543-3764.