• How does this system work?
• Who does it harm?
• How can we change it?
• What can I do?
• How do I get off of the 2025 Lien Sale?
• Action steps

Agenda

What can I do? (A Preview)

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1. Get your property off the lien sale list by filing one of several easy applications OR make sure the City is paying attention if your landlord is on the list (that means they are collecting rent but not paying their bills)
2. If you are a council member, sign on to the bills that will help replace the lien sale with a more just system for debt collection.
3. Join our coalition and doorknock to get your neighbors off the lien sale

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What is the Abolish the NYC Lien Sale Coalition?

• A coalition of over 10 organizations across NYC
• Held workshops and roundtables to educate and build consensus about how to reform the lien sale
• We developed a campaign to replace the lien sale altogether
• Held press conferences, rallies and marches to push City Council and the Mayor to abolish the lien sale

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Around the city, but especially in communities of color, small homeowners are struggling to pay their municipal bills and tenants are suffering with bad conditions and absentee landlords. Meanwhile, empty lots sit vacant as speculators flip them for profits without building a thing.

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Instead of designing a system to fix these problems, for the past 25 years the city has outsourced core functions of government and distanced itself from it duties.

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Low-income renters and homeowners, seniors and communities of color have suffered as a result.

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Tenants and homeowners are at risk! The city announced that it will be doing a lien sale in May 2025. There were 29,972 properties and 149,001 units on the 90-day list in February; 26,511 properties and 130,244 units remained at risk as of the 60-day list published March 17.

Tenants and homeowners are struggling, and city policy is making it worse.

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The Current System: What Happens When a Property Owner Doesn’t Pay Their Taxes on Time?

• Investors in the Trust who make money at several points in the process:
• through service fees;
• through high and compounding daily interest rates;
• and by sometimes by selling properties they foreclose.

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• City politicians and agencies who get to deny responsibility for damages caused by the lien sale

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• Bad landlords who are not deterred by liens and fines because they know they can sell their building for a big profit

Who benefits from this system?

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• Homeowners who want to settle their debts but can’t afford the fines and compounding interest, and might lose their homes to foreclosure or decide to sell
• Tenants in buildings whose landlord is using rent to cover debts rather than maintain the housing, who might be displaced
• BIPOC communities where more and more properties -- including owner-occupied homes, rentals, and vacant lots -- are in disrepair because of this predatory system
• Working class people who need long-term affordable housing in their neighborhoods

Who suffers as a result of this system?

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Long story short: it was a right-wing think tank’s dream, and Rudy Giuliani adopted it for New York City.

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They said it was necessary because the City took on so many properties due to property abandonment in the 1970-1990s.

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Even though no other city works this way, Giuliani’s system still operates here 29 years later.

This sounds awful. Why does this system exist?

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Do we need a Tax Lien Sale?

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NO!

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Sample large cities that never securitized liens:�

• Los Angeles (and does better than NYC in collecting taxes!)
• San Francisco (same)
• Boston (same)

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Lien sales are not legal at all in 21 states.

Other cities don’t have tax lien sales and almost everyone still pays their taxes!

Step 1) Abolish the tax lien sale

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Step 2) Establish an equitable property tax collection system with the goals of:

• keeping tax delinquency rates low
• preventing displacement
• curbing speculation
• improving conditions for tenants
• promoting community ownership
• preserving and developing affordable housing and public space

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Step 3) Ensure that public-sector workers (ex. DOF and HPD) and community organizers have the resources they need to secure just outcomes.

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So the tax lien sale is bad and unnecessary. What should we do instead?

• We won a lot of improvements (more on that on the coming slides), but there is still lot to fight for (more on that too!)

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• Source documents: final bill | commitment letter | Sched C �
• Here is the City’s updated lien sale page, which reflects some of the big improvements we got the City to make for lien sales 2025-2028: https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/property/property-lien-sales.page �
• We expect lien sales in 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028 under this authorization

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The Lien Sale was Reauthorized by the City Council in 2024 through December 2028

What we won in 2024:

• New: $2 million a year in public funding for non-government organizations to do outreach and education, housing and legal counseling for homeowners and tenants affected by the lien sale (being distributed for 2025 through the Center for NYC Neighborhoods)�
• New: $1 million from City Council for estate planning and tangled title legal counseling “to preserve generational wealth in communities of color” (to be distributed by the City Council)�
• List of all properties with rental units on the lien sale 90-day list that have been included at least twice in the four preceding 90-day lists for City Council (repeat offenders)

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• Annual notice of available exemptions and abatements sent to property owners

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What we’re still fighting for:

• Quarterly notices of available exemptions and abatements (Intro 782-2024)

Outreach

The DOF Annual Notice

Brand New in 2025!

What we won in 2024:

• HPD to do direct outreach to tenants in buildings that have been included at least twice in the four preceding 90-day lists and have debts of 15% of value or higher

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What we’re still fighting for:

• Bringing back City foreclosure program to protect tenants in rental buildings with negligent landlords by replacing their landlords and creating coop conversion opportunities (Intro 1063-2024)

Protecting tenants

What we won in 2024:

For families making less than “Enhanced Star” limit ($107,300 per household in 2025, set every year by New York State)

• Easy Exit: simple form to have property removed from lien sale three times in 36 months
• Refundable lien sale surcharge as long as debt to the trust is paid off (form here)
• Options created to defer City debt or make income-based payments through Property Tax and Interest Deferral Programs (PT AID)
• Preservation track option to choose voluntary foreclosure alternative to selling your home or being foreclosed on that allows people to stay; requires working with a not-for-profit organization like a CLT

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For Seniors and Disabled Homeowners:

• If you enroll in Senior Citizen Homeowners’ Exemption (SCHE) or Disabled Homeowners’ Exemption (DHE) after lien sale but within 90 days, will have lien defected and debt returned to City, fees cancelled

Protecting low income households (1 of 2)

What we’re still fighting for:

• Monitoring implementation of the preservation track and making sure CLTs have a clear role and the program is equitable
• Retroactive SCHE and DHE exemptions (Res 327-2024 CM Nurse, needs State law)
• Rolling deadlines for individual exemptions and abatements (Res 780-2025 CM Sanchez, needs State law)

Protecting low income households (2 of 2)

What we won in 2024:

• Requirement that past due notices to be included in quarterly bills

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• Requirement that minimum pay off notices that say how much an owner needs to pay to get off the lien sale list (first ones should be going out now in preparation for May 2025 lien sale)�

What we’re still fighting for:

• Getting City to record debt without need for lien sale and replacing big list of sale eligible properties with individual recording if there is one (Intro 783-2024)

Better communication to property owners

New in 2024

What we won in 2024:

• Vacant sliver lots that are undevelopable will be removed from the lien sale
• No automatic subsequent liens on 1-3 family homes, condos and coops
• Low income homeowners have many options for getting out of the sale

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What we’re still fighting for:

• Abolishing the lien sale! Instead of shrinking the size of the sale, we are fighting to change how NYC handles debt collection entirely.

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Shrinking the lien sale

What we won in 2024:

Predictable interest rates

• Interest that the lien trust can charge will be the same as the rate the City Council set for city debt at the time of the lien sale

�Reporting

• Improved public transparency about trusts and past liens sold

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What we’re still fighting for:

• Public agency debt collection instead of a private tax lien trust
• Transparency about private company that runs the process for the City (RESF Advisors)

Transparency & Predictability

What we won in 2024:

Council/Admin Task Force to meet monthly to keep working on reforming/replacing the lien sale, specifically:

• Examining and devising ways delinquent City property tax could be collected fairly and effectively without the sale of tax liens
• Reforms that could be made to the lien sale system if its not replaced
• Look at the liens that have collected in the “graveyard” trust since Giuliani created the lien sale
• Timeline for reporting progress:
• Draft recommendations to be published by April 11, 2025
• Public hearing on draft recommendations by May 1, 2025
• Final report due September 15, 2025

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What we’re still fighting for:

• Abolishing the lien sale!

Commitment to Improvement

February 12: 90-day list of at-risk properties was published: www.nyc.gov/liensale & 90-day notices went out to property owners

March 17: 60-day notices went out & list was updated

Approx. April 17: 30-day notices will go out

Approx. May 9: 10-day notices will go out

May 19: last day to DO SOMETHING if you got a notice

May 20: 2025 lien sale will be held (first since 2021)

Countdown to May 20, 2025

60-day Lien Sale At Risk List Map

Top 25 Council Districts on the 90-day list (number of residential properties ranked)

Housing Counseling

We’re a HUD Approved Housing Counseling Agency

• Counseling is free!
• Foreclosure Prevention
• Mortgage Assistance
• Delinquent Utilities
• Repairs
• Resolving Liens etc
• Interested in counseling?
• Contact the main office at (718) 478-3848 or email me at thinley@chhayacdc.org

Countdown to May 20, 2025: Owners

Eligibility criteria:

1. You own a one-, two-, or three-family home or condominium unit.
2. The property is your primary residence and has been for the last 12 months.
3. You do not own any other properties in New York City.
4. The combined annual income of all owners and their spouses who reside at the property is less than $107,300.

Get out of 2025 Lien Sale: Easy Exit

Deadline to get out of lien sale or reverse sale if you’re eligible for Senior or Disabled homeowner exemption: August 19, 2025

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Note: deadline to get exemption applied for next year already passed & we need Albany to create the possibility of retroactive exemptions and/or rolling deadlines in the future

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Online:

www.nyc.gov/liensale (create an account + add your property)

Mail:

NYC Department of Finance

59 Maiden Lane – Tax Lien Unit, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10038

In Person:

At any Department of Finance business center (locations available at www.nyc.gov/visitdof or by calling 311).

Get out of 2025 Lien Sale: Exemptions

Get out of 2025 Lien Sale

Emergency Repair Certification

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Get out of 2025 Lien Sale: Payment Plans

1. Payment Plan: Standard

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2. Property Tax and Interest Deferral (PT AID) - 4 types:

• Low-Income Senior (LIS)
• Fixed-Term Income-Based (FTI)
• Extenuating Circumstances Income-Based (ECI)
• Circuit Breaker Plan

3. Payment Plan Option: Reduced Income Payment Plan

4. Payment Option: Water Liens through DEP Collections Unit

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1. Get yourself off the lien sale list!
2. Join the Abolish the Lien Sale Coalition (if you are with an organization you can request to become a Coalition member)
3. Join a door knocking event - ideally in your neighborhood! (comment in the chat so we know to reach out to you)
4. If you are a tenant and your landlord isn’t paying their bills, start organizing your building and call 311 to file complaints with HPD.
5. If you are a council member, sign on to our bills!

Take Action Now!

Take Action Now!

Questions?