ABOLISH THE TAX LIEN SALE
Our first city-wide policy campaign has been to push back against the city’s tax lien sale, a vestige of the Giuliani era. By selling municipal property and utility debts to private collectors, the city dispossesses longtime homeowners and relinquishes public leverage over delinquent and neglectful landlords.
The East New York Community Land Trust began organizing against the lien sale in 2020 when member Niani Taylor came to our policy committee meeting and said did you all know that East New York and Brownsville had the highest number of properties on the lien sale compared to any other neighborhood in NYC. We began investigating. We learned that the City is six times more likely to sell a tax lien in Black neighborhood than a white neighborhood.
Diagram of the existing NYC Tax Lien Sale system by Sam Kattan and Rania Dalloul (March 2022).CITY-WIDE COALITION TO END DISPLACEMENT
In response, we convened the city-wide Abolish the NYC Tax Lien Sale Coalition to stop the displacement of longtime BIPOC homeowners for small tax debts, enact protections for tenants in tax lien sale-affected buildings, and to create a new system of debt collection that keeps people in their homes and creates a property pipeline for CLT homes. We have conducted outreach to countless homeowners and tenants, produced reports, held rallies and press conferences, and beat the drum about the predatory nature of the lien sale.
COALITION MEMBERS
East New York CLT (Lead), New Economy Project, TakeRoot Justice, Western Queens CLT, Bronx CLT, Community Service Society of New York, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. Brooklyn Level Up, Coalition for Community Advancement, New York City Community Land Initiative, MHANY Management Inc.
ENDORSERS
New York Civil Liberties Union, New York Communities For Change, Center for NYC Neighborhoods
OUR VICTORIES
Although this fight is still ongoing, our efforts garnered several victories in the years since the campaign began, including a 3-year moratorium on the sale itself, public funding to support homeowners and reforms to the policy itself.
Most recently, we forced the introduction of two bills that will end the lien sale as we know it. This legislation will authorize a publicly accountable land bank to handle city debt and will prioritize CLTs to keep residents in their homes and preserve these homes as affordable housing for generations.
LEGISLATION
We are fighting with our comrades in the New York Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI) to pass the Community Land Act (CLA), a bill package that will give CLTs that tools we need to preserve deeply affordable housing in our city. It includes:
Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (Intro 902): COPA gives CLTs and other mission-driven nonprofits a first right to purchase multifamily buildings when landlords sell. Modeled on successful legislation implemented in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, COPA would curb speculation and level the playing field for nonprofits to expand the supply of permanently-affordable, community- and tenant-controlled housing. Learn more.
Public Land for Public Good (Intro 78): Most City-owned land currently goes to for-profit developers, contributing to market-rate development and displacement in low-income Black and Brown communities. Intro 78 would require NYC to prioritize CLTs and nonprofit developers when disposing of City-owned land, to ensure public land is used for permanently-affordable housing and other public benefit. Learn more.
Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Resolution (Res 374): Resolution 374 calls on the New York State legislature and Governor Hochul to enact legislation giving tenants a first right to collectively purchase their buildings when a landlord sells.
SELECTED MEDIA
Brick Underground: “Mayor Adams is bringing the tax lien sale back. Here’s how to get your property off the list” | May 16, 2025
Brownstoner: “Upcoming City Tax Lien Sale Puts Brooklyn Homeowners at Risk, Advocates Say” | Apr. 21, 2025
2025
The City: “How NYC’s Unpaid Property Tax System Has Left Some Harlem Tenants in the Lurch” | Jun. 28, 2024
The City: “Council and Mayor Move to Revive Stalled Property Tax Debt Collections” | Jun. 18, 2024
The City: “Pushback Grows as Council and Mayor Hash Out Deal to Revive Property Debt Sell-Off” | Apr. 11, 2024
Gothamist: “NYC’s debt collection program is being replaced. Advocates hope its flaws can be fixed” | Apr. 11, 2024
2024
The Real Deal: “One year later, city hasn’t renewed or fixed lien sale” | Feb. 22, 2023
2023
Gotham Gazette: “Majority of City Council Declares Opposition to Reauthorizing NYC Tax Lien Sale” | May 31, 2022
Brooklyn Paper: “Controversial Tax Lien Sale Comes to a Bitter End, For Now” | Mar. 1, 2022
City Limits: “As NYC Considers Scrapping Tax Lien Sale, Land Trust Plan Gains Steam” | Feb. 28, 2022
Harlem World: “Activists And Electeds Cheer End Of The Rudy Giuliani Created NYC Tax Lien Sale” | Feb. 28, 2022
BK Reader: “Housing Rights Activists Put Tax Lien Sale on Trial for Displacing Families of Color in Brooklyn” | Feb. 16, 2022
The Baffler: “Lien on Me” | Feb. 10, 2022
The City: “Tax Lien Sales Tick Toward Expiration Date Without Alternative in Sight” | Jan. 27, 2022
2022
NYS Focus: “Tenants Suffer As City Sells Landlords’ Tax Debt to Speculators” | Oct. 15, 2021
BK Reader: “A Tax Lien Sale Is Happening in Dec and BK Organizers Are Rushing to Support Homeowners” | Sept. 13, 2021
Kings County Politics: “Tax Lien Sale Bill Asks for Reform Taskforce” | Feb. 3, 2021
2021
Politico: “Council rankles de Blasio administration after pulling tax lien bill” | Dec. 21, 2020
The City: “Council Considers Killing the Tax-Collection Machine Rudy Giuliani Built” | Oct. 22, 2020
Bklyner: “Activists And Lawmakers Call To Abolish City’s Tax Lien Sale” | Oct. 14, 2020