Mamdani sent nearly 6,000 pied-à-terre tax warnings to homes that didn’t qualify

A judge ordered the Mamdani administration on Sept. 29 to cancel thousands of notices sent to property owners warning them that they qualified for New York City’s pied-à-terre tax after the administration sent over one-third of notices erroneously, Greg B. Smith writes for The City Reporter. The pied-à-terre tax is meant to tax homes worth more than $5 million if the owner has a primary residence outside of New York City.

“After sending out the threatening letters to 17,000 homeowners, the Department of Finance subsequently determined nearly 6,000 — or 35% — were actually primary residences that are not subject to the hefty tax,” The City Reporter reports. “Late Tuesday, Matthew Rauschenbach, a spokesperson for Mayor Mamdani, said the administration would invoke an “automatic stay” of Supreme Court Justice Wayne Ozzi’s ruling and continue moving forward with processing requests for exemptions from the tax.

Two additional lawsuits hit the pied-à-terre tax this week: one from Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor to both Eric Adams and Rudy Giuliani who filed the initial lawsuit, on behalf of "regular" homeowners, and one from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who argues that the tax discriminates against non-residents of NYC.