A New York City pied-à-terre tax rollout has been temporarily halted after a lawsuit from residents who say the city cast too wide a net and wrongly swept ordinary homeowners into the process. The case has put Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new levy under immediate legal pressure and turned a technical tax fight into a broader dispute over how City Hall handled the launch.
Rachel O’Brien, whose husband is City Councilman Frank Morano, joined the lawsuit after the city included her home on a published list of more than 900,000 properties that could be affected. She said the listing left her confused and angry, especially after her husband began hearing from constituents who found their own homes on the same list and did not understand why. O’Brien said the city’s rollout created worry for middle-income homeowners who are already covering mortgages, property taxes, utilities and the costs of raising families.
O’Brien said neighbors, friends and relatives reacted strongly after seeing their properties appear on the list posted by the city Department of Finance late last month. In her view, the city’s handling of the matter amounted to a sloppy and unnecessary public airing of lawful property owners. She said many people felt intimidated after learning their homes were included, and she argued that the administration relied on erroneous information when it moved forward.
The pied-à-terre tax is aimed at wealthy owners of secondary homes in New York City. It targets one- to three-family homes worth at least $5 million, along with co-ops and condominiums valued at $1 million. The suit, filed Friday, argues that the people placed on the “supplemental tax roll” were effectively doxed and pushed into panic even though most would not actually owe the surcharge.
Another plaintiff, Chelsea resident Simon Hedley, was among 17,000 New Yorkers who received mailed notices warning that they could face the tax unless they applied for an exemption. Hedley, who supports Mamdani and did not object to the law approved by Gov. Kathy Hochul, said he joined the case because he believed the city used a scattershot approach and did not do enough to verify who belonged on the list. He said the burden was then shifted to residents to prove they should not be taxed.
