Updated on
According to New York Real Property Law 235-f it's illegal for a landlord to restrict your ability to live without someone without adding them to the lease.
In New York it’s perfectly legal for someone to live with you without being on the lease. If you want to replace roommates or bring in a roommate for the first time, you’re required to inform your landlord but you don't need their permission as long as you follow the rules. The most important thing to know is that you have to provide them with the full names of the people who move in within thirty days of the start of their occupancy.
As is usual with New York housing law, there are some caveats that you should be aware of. The applicable statute here is Real Property Law § 235-f, which provides individual tenants with the absolute right to let all of the following people live with them:
The tenant's “immediate family:" The law doesn’t define who counts as immediate family, but another law in New York, the Rent Stabilization Code http://tenant.net/Rent_Laws/rsc/rsc2520.html, does define this phrase and the housing courts have carried that definition over to this statute. Immediate family means spouses, kids, stepkids, parents, stepparents, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and parents- and children-in-law. Sorry, stepgrandparents, you don’t count - and neither do boyfriends and girlfriends. So, if you are a single tenant, you cannot bring in both your romantic partner and another occupant.
One additional occupant: The children of the additional occupant: When an apartment has multiple tenants (that is, multiple people named in the lease), each tenant can have their immediate family move in and have one additional, unrelated occupants. That occupant can have all their children move in. can also move in, along with their children.
How many occupants can move in?
If you live in an apartment on a lease with more than one named tenant, at any given time the total number of tenants plus occupants residing in the apartment cannot exceed the number of named tenants on the lease. So, if there are three tenants, and two move out, the remaining tenant can bring in two unrelated people and their kids, as well as the tenant’s immediate family.
Next steps
The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice.
