Mamdani pied-à-terre tax rollout scores major legal win

 Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax rollout can proceed, an appeals court ruled Wednesday, handing Hizzoner a major legal victory in an already sensational week for socialism.

While other challenges against the controversial second-home tax remain, Mamdani said he was “heartened” by the ruling, and was looking forward to defending the law in upcoming proceedings.

“From day one, those with the most have attempted to use every legal avenue available to shield their wealth and avoid contributing more to our city,” Mamdani said. “We will implement the pied-a-terre surcharge fairly and efficiently, ensuring that those most able to contribute do their part to build a city that works for everyone.”

The Brooklyn Appellate Court unanimously tossed the lawsuit brought by a group of homeowners last summer who sued over what they called a “botched” rollout in Staten Island Supreme Court by powerhouse city hall legal antagonist Randy Mastro.

The suit challenged the rollout of the tax — calling it “arbitrary and capricious” — and not the tax itself.

It claimed the city unfairly placed the burden on homeowners to prove their residency instead of performing a more thorough review prior to sending out 17,000 tax notification letters this summer — and publishing a tax roll with nearly 1 million properties listed.

But while Staten Island Judge Wayne Ozzi initially ruled that homeowners who received the initial notices were “substantially harmed and penalized needlessly” and ordered the city to re-do the rollout, the appellate panel disagreed entirely.

“All taxpayers incur time, effort, and costs in determining and complying with their various tax obligations,” the four-judge panel wrote in response to the claims of burden-shifting.

The homeowners, according to the ruling, “have not documented and quantified any actual costs incurred.”

In their ruling, the appeal court said the plaintiffs — seven homeowners from around the city who said they aren’t subject to the tax but still received “threatening” letters — had no concrete legal right to file their lawsuit.

“The mere receipt of the initial determination notices … does not qualify as an injury,” the court ruled, and said the letters served “an informational purpose.”

Additionally, the court said that publishing the property tax list can’t be called an injury, since they have long been public record, and “confusion” isn’t enough of an injury to give homeowners the right to sue the city.

“It’s a shame that, after the City admittedly botched the rollout of this surcharge, the court today took the procedural offramp of standing to avoid addressing the merits of this case,” Mastro said Wednesday.

“What the City has done here is unconscionable — trying to ensnare thousands of people who don’t owe this surcharge into having to prove they live in their own homes or else have to pay it.”

Mastro noted that the “ultimate day of reckoning” will come next month when the court will hear another suit he filed on Long Island which directly challenges the tax’s constitutionality. 

“We remain confident we will prevail and put an end to this unconstitutional surcharge altogether,” Mastro said.

https://nypost.com/2026/11/04/us-news/mamdanis-pied-a-terre-tax-rollout-scores-major-legal-win/