S 421 New York Senate · 2025 Regular Session

Requires landlords to mitigate damages when commercial tenants vacate premises in violation of the terms of the lease

S 421 requires commercial landlords to make reasonable efforts to re-rent vacated premises when tenants leave early in violation of lease terms. Landlords must try to rent the space at fair market value or the original lease rate (whichever is lower), and the new lease would replace the previous tenant's obligation. Any lease clause attempting to exempt landlords from this duty is void under the bill. This directly affects commercial landlords and tenants in lease disputes, shifting the responsibility to minimize financial harm to landlords who fail to actively seek new tenants.
Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared
Introduction
Jan 2025
Committee Review
Floor Vote
Governor
Introduced Jan 8, 2025 Last action May 29, 2026
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What changed between versions

S421 S421A · 2 edits
MINOR
This bill expands a landlord's legal duty to mitigate damages to include commercial properties, not just residential ones. Previously, landlords only had to try to re-rent units occupied for dwelling purposes; now they must also take reasonable steps to re-rent commercial spaces when a tenant leaves early. This change aims to ensure fair treatment for both residential and commercial tenants by preventing landlords from automatically charging full rent for the remainder of a lease if they could have rented the space to someone else.
Scope change
The bill's scope was expanded from covering only residential dwellings to also covering commercial premises not occupied for dwelling purposes.
SCOPE

Added a new subsection requiring landlords to mitigate damages for commercial leases where a tenant vacates in violation of the lease terms.

REQUIREMENT

Modified the existing requirement to explicitly include commercial properties alongside residential dwellings under the duty to mitigate damages.

Floor votes

How they voted

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Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions
4
Key actions
2
Committee
2
Amendments
2
May 29, 2026
Upper · Passed
PRINT NUMBER 421A
upper
May 29, 2026
Upper · Passed
AMEND AND RECOMMIT TO JUDICIARY
upper
Jan 7, 2026
Committee
REFERRED TO JUDICIARY
upper
Jan 8, 2025
Committee
REFERRED TO JUDICIARY
upper
1 primary · 0 co-sponsors

Sponsors

Role
Legislator
Party
State
District
P
Photo of John Liu
John Liu
DDemocratic
NY
16