on Respondent's FHEPS application because it had to decide whether to grant her motion
for a stay of execution of the warrant of eviction.
After being placed on hold for some time, the court was informed that the
caseworker was out of the office and that the caseworker's supervisor would be able to
provide the information, but that she was occupied with another matter. As it was close
to the end of the morning session, the court directed the parties to return to court the
afternoon session. When the parties returned, the court called Catholic Charities again.
The supervisor was still unavailable, but the person who answered the telephone
informed the court that they had information that the application had been submitted to
HRA, at some unknown time. The court declined to continue its investigation by
attempting to reach a representative from HRA for additional information.
The power of the court to vacate a warrant of eviction prior to its execution, and by
extension, to stay execution of the warrant, for "good cause shown" is well established
(see e.g. Harvey 1390 LLC v
Bodenheim, 96 AD3d 664 [1st Dept 2012]). Particularly after enactment of the
Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (L 2019, ch 36), which removed
most incentives for a landlord to evict rent-paying tenants of rent-regulated apartments,
as long as the tenant is paying ongoing rent and simply needs assistance with payment of
rent arrears, there is little rational basis to oppose a stay of eviction while the tenant seeks
those monies. After all, were the landlord to evict that tenant, in most cases the best it
could do would be to replace them with another tenant who will pay nearly the same rent,
but who of course will not pay the former tenant's rent arrears.