QN St. Albans Holdings LLC v. Sands, 2024 NY Slip Op 24252 (2024)

In the present matter, at the time the Petition was filed, the law allowed a party to terminate an unregulated tenancy at will without cause (see RPL 228, RPAPL 711(1)), a legal act that did not require the participation or consent of Respondent. Under such circumstances, this court cannot discern any reason to depart from the plain language of CCA 400 in defining commencement as the date of filing. Furthermore, tying commencement to service would render an otherwise properly filed petition defective after the fact. The court presumes the legislature sought to avoid such a retroactive result inasmuch as it provided landlords with a one-hundred twenty-day cushion to comply with the new predicate notice requirements in GCEL advising tenants if their housing accommodation is subject to Good Cause (L 2024, ch 56, part HH, § 7(a)). In doing so, the legislature allowed non-renewal and termination notices served pursuant to RPL 226-c and RPL 232-a before the passage of GCEL, some requiring as much as 90 days of notice, to remain viable, indicative of a legislative intent to avoid invalidating legal papers that complied with the law when they were prepared.