NYCHA Steps Up Evictions on Tenants, Paying Marshal Fees

The cash-strapped New York City Housing Authority has begun to accelerate removal of tenants who have racked up significant rent arrears, evicting 62 households in the first quarter of 2024. That’s more than the 58 households evicted during all of last year.

NYCHA is paying related fees and, unlike private landlords, shelling out for moving costs, amassing bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The housing authority pays city marshals to serve eviction notices and warrants of eviction. Unlike private sector landlords, NYCHA also picks up the moving costs.

In just over two years, NYCHA has paid out more than $1 million in eviction-related costs as the authority grapples with tens of thousands of public housing tenants who did not resume paying their rent after the COVID-19 rent moratorium expired in January 2022.

Those costs may soon go up: A bill to hike the fees marshals and sheriffs are allowed to charge passed the state legislature earlier this month and now awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature.

NYCHA is stepping up a more aggressive approach to rent collection as it struggles with tenant payment arrears that as of May 31 topped $456 million. Some 63,000 of NYCHA’s 147,000 households are behind on payments, including some who owe more than a year’s worth of back rent. Post-pandemic, the authority’s collection dropped from around 95% to a current rate of 60%.

Most of these tenants do not yet face termination of their lease. NYCHA is only moving to evict tenants with serious rent arrears, while also resuming its protocol of evicting tenants who have been found to have committed serious violations of NYCHA rules and regulations.

In all of these cases, NYCHA pays city marshals for every step of the process under a fee schedule mapped out by state law.

The collection of fees is central to the income stream of city marshals who are not actually city employees. They are appointed by the mayor based on the recommendations of a panel of experts, and they fund their operations based only on fees and other charges set by state law.

Marshals collect fees for a wide variety of tasks, from handling evictions of tenants who owe significant back rent, to placing the boot on the vehicles of traffic law violators and parking scofflaws, to seizing property and bank accounts of deadbeat debtors for mainstream banks and, sometimes, predatory lenders.

Their jurisdiction is limited to the confines of New York City, but their appointment to this obscure municipal position has allowed some of them to personally pocket more than $1 million in annual revenue.

A recent examination by THE CITY detailed a trail of bad acts by more than two dozen of them over the last few years. Since 2018, the city Department of Investigation has sanctioned 14 marshals, including two who have retired or resigned. The 12 active marshals sanctioned make up nearly half of the 28 currently serving.

DOI cited marshals for everything from making antisemitic remarks to erupting in profane tirades at tenants during evictions to placing boots on the wrong vehicles. Several were caught seizing property outside their jurisdiction.

A key source of revenue for marshals is evictions, and the fees charged are numerous.

Obtaining an index number in landlord/tenant court — $15.

Serving the initial notice of eviction on the tenant — $15.

Serving a second notice 72 hours before the scheduled eviction — another $15.

Execution of the warrant — $75.

Then there are moving charges: the marshal hires a moving firm, then passes all the costs on to NYCHA, including a fee of $85 per room with a four-room minimum, plus a $15 per carton fee when more than four cartons are required in a room.

If there’s a delay that prevents the moving company from getting into the apartment at a scheduled time, NYCHA is charged $90 per hour of delay. And if the elevator in the NYCHA building is out — a not infrequent occurrence in some developments — that’s another $100 per flight if furniture must be brought down via stairwells. If it’s a 12th floor apartment, that comes to a cool $1,200.

“The marshals office bills NYCHA after the eviction on behalf of the moving company,” Michael Woloz, a lobbyist who represents the Marshals Association of the City of New York. “It is strictly a ‘pass-through expense.’ The Marshal offices received no extra money for performing a full eviction.”

Last year between the serving of notices and the actual evictions, NYCHA paid out $753,934 in fees to city marshals, and another $302,623 in the first quarter of this year. At that rate, NYCHA will likely be paying out more than $1.2 million in fees by the end of this year.

NYCHA has the power to try and get the evicted tenant to reimburse the fees, and for years it pursued them. Now, however, the authority limits its reimbursement requests to the execution of the warrant, the mileage and the moving costs.

As of last week, NYCHA officials couldn’t say how much money — if any — they’ve been able to get back. As authority spokesperson Michael Horgan noted, “Tracking money collected as reimbursement for fees associated with the marshals is not possible in part because NYCHA can recover these fees in a number of ways, including tenants paying them to us directly, in collections proceedings after they’ve moved out or been evicted.”

And soon some of those fees will be going up. Two weeks ago, the state legislature passed bills hiking the $15 fee marshals are allowed to charge for serving notices of eviction on tenants. If Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the bill into law, those fees will rise to $20.

Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-The Bronx), the bill’s sponsor, noted the rates haven’t risen in 20 years and the fees NYCHA pays marshals is a necessary cost of cracking down on tenants who don’t pay their rent.

“If NYCHA is trying to evict a tenant if somebody’s not paying their rent that means it’s costing NYCHA a fortune in lost rent money which means that probably somebody else deserves that apartment,” he said. “NYCHA is bleeding money all over the place and they can’t afford to have people not pay their rent.”

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