N.Y. Real Property Law § 226-b

Thirty-Day Sublet Rule: N.Y. Real Property Law § 226-b

Tenants in dwellings of four or more units may sublet with consent. Landlords must respond within thirty days; failure to respond is deemed consent.

Official text N.Y. Real Property Law § 226-b — New York

§ 226-b. Right to sublease or assign. 1. Unless a greater right to assign is conferred by the lease, a tenant renting a residence may not assign his lease without the written consent of the owner, which consent may be unconditionally withheld without cause provided that the owner shall release the tenant from the lease upon request of the tenant upon thirty days notice if the owner unreasonably withholds consent which release shall be the sole remedy of the tenant. If the owner reasonably withholds consent, there shall be no assignment and the tenant shall not be released from the lease.

  • 2. (a) A tenant renting a residence pursuant to an existing lease in a dwelling having four or more residential units shall have the right to sublease his premises subject to the written consent of the landlord in advance of the subletting. Such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld.
  • (b) The tenant shall inform the landlord of his intent to sublease by mailing a notice of such intent by certified mail, return receipt requested. Such request shall be accompanied by the following information: (i) the term of the sublease, (ii) the name of the proposed sublessee, (iii) the business and permanent home address of the proposed sublessee, (iv) the tenant's reason for subletting, (v) the tenant's address for the term of the sublease, (vi) the written consent of any cotenant or guarantor of the lease, and (vii) a copy of the proposed sublease, to which a copy of the tenant's lease shall be attached if available, acknowledged by the tenant and proposed subtenant as being a true copy of such sublease.
  • (c) Within ten days after the mailing of such request, the landlord may ask the tenant for additional information as will enable the landlord to determine if rejection of such request shall be unreasonable. Any such request for additional information shall not be unduly burdensome. Within thirty days after the mailing of the request for consent, or of the additional information reasonably asked for by the landlord, whichever is later, the landlord shall send a notice to the tenant of his consent or, if he does not consent, his reasons therefor. Landlord's failure to send such a notice shall be deemed to be a consent to the proposed subletting. If the landlord consents, the premises may be sublet in accordance with the request, but the tenant thereunder, shall nevertheless remain liable for the performance of tenant's obligations under said lease. If the landlord reasonably withholds consent, there shall be no subletting and the tenant shall not be released from the lease. If the landlord unreasonably withholds consent, the tenant may sublet in accordance with the request and may recover the costs of the proceeding and attorneys fees if it is found that the owner acted in bad faith by withholding consent.
  • 3. The provisions of this section shall apply to leases entered into or renewed before or after the effective date of this section, however they shall not apply to public housing and other units for which there are constitutional or statutory criteria covering admission thereto nor to a proprietary lease, viz.: a lease to, or held by, a tenant entitled thereto by reason of ownership of stock in a corporate owner of premises which operates the same on a cooperative basis.
  • 4. With respect to units covered by the emergency tenant protection act of nineteen seventy-four or the rent stabilization law of nineteen hundred sixty-nine the exercise of the rights granted by this section shall be subject to the applicable provisions of such laws. Nothing contained in this section two hundred twenty-six-b shall be deemed to affect the rights, if any, of any tenant subject to title Y of chapter 51 of the administrative code of the city of New York or the emergency housing rent control law.
  • 5. Any sublet or assignment which does not comply with the provisions of this section shall constitute a substantial breach of lease or tenancy.
  • 6. Any provision of a lease or rental agreement purporting to waive a provision of this section is null and void.
  • 7. The provisions of this section except for items in paragraph (b) of subdivision two of this section not previously required, shall apply to all actions and proceedings pending on the effective date of this section.
  • 8. Nothing contained in this section shall be deemed to prevent or limit the right of a tenant to sell improvements to a unit pursuant to article seven-C of the multiple dwelling law.

Text as published in the 2026 snapshot of the code.

Source: Vaquill Open US Law, compiled from official state publishers (huggingface.co), reproduced under license CC BY 4.0.

Read this provision at the official source →

What it actually says

The section treats assignment and subletting as opposite cases. Assignment - handing the whole lease over - requires the landlord's written consent, and that consent "may be unconditionally withheld without cause". The tenant's only protection is a trade: if consent is unreasonably withheld, the landlord must release the tenant from the lease on thirty days' notice if the tenant asks, and the statute says that release is the tenant's sole remedy. If consent is reasonably withheld, there is no assignment and no release.

Subletting is different, and only in buildings with four or more residential units. There the tenant has a right to sublet subject to the landlord's advance written consent, and that consent "shall not be unreasonably withheld". Paragraph (b) sets out exactly what the tenant must send by certified mail, return receipt requested: the term, the subtenant's name, the subtenant's business and permanent home addresses, the reason for subletting, the tenant's own address during the sublease, the written consent of any co-tenant or guarantor, and a copy of the proposed sublease.

The clock in paragraph (c) is the part that decides most of these disputes. The landlord has ten days to ask for additional information, which may not be unduly burdensome, and thirty days from the mailing of the request - or of the additional information, whichever is later - to send notice of consent or of the reasons for refusal. Failure to send that notice is deemed consent. If consent is unreasonably withheld the tenant may sublet anyway and may recover costs and attorneys' fees on a finding that the landlord acted in bad faith. A sublet that does not comply with the section is a substantial breach of the lease, the tenant remains liable on the lease throughout, waivers are null and void, and the section does not apply to public housing or to co-op proprietary leases.

When it applies

  • A tenant needs to leave for several months and wants to sublet rather than break the lease.
  • A sublet request is sent and the landlord simply does not answer.
  • The landlord refuses consent without giving reasons within thirty days.
  • A tenant sublets on a booking platform without following the notice procedure.
  • A tenant wants to hand the whole lease to someone else and the landlord refuses outright.

What this section does not say

  • It does not give a right to assign. Consent to assignment may be unconditionally withheld; the only consequence of unreasonable refusal is release from the lease on request.
  • It does not apply to buildings with fewer than four residential units - the sublet right in subdivision 2 is limited to dwellings of four or more.
  • It does not release the tenant from the lease on subletting. Paragraph (c) says the tenant remains liable for performance of the lease obligations.
  • It does not apply to co-op proprietary leases or to public housing, both excluded by subdivision 3.
  • It does not authorize short-term rental. Compliance with this section says nothing about the Multiple Dwelling Law or local rules on short stays.

Worked examples

Invented situations, written to show how the wording bites. They are not real cases, not judgments and not precedent, and nothing here predicts what would happen in yours.

Illustrative example

A tenant who has to be away for five months sends a certified sublet request containing everything the statute lists, and hears nothing at all. Six weeks later they ask whether they can go ahead.

How the wording applies

The landlord has ten days to ask for additional information and thirty days from the mailing of the request - or of the additional information, whichever is later - to send notice of consent or of the reasons for refusal, and failure to send that notice is deemed consent. So this turns on whether the request actually carried everything paragraph (b) requires, because the clock runs from a complete request.

How the parties settled it

The landlord confirms consent in writing, the tenant supplies the subtenant's details and a copy of the executed sublease, and both record that the tenant stays liable on the lease throughout.

Illustrative example

A tenant who has bought a house wants to hand the whole lease over to a colleague with a strong income and good references. The landlord refuses outright and gives no reason at all.

How the wording applies

Assignment requires the landlord's written consent, and the section says that consent may be unconditionally withheld without cause. The tenant's protection is a trade rather than a right to assign: if consent is unreasonably withheld, the landlord must release the tenant from the lease on thirty days' notice if the tenant asks, and the statute makes that release the tenant's sole remedy. Either way there is no assignment.

How the parties settled it

The tenant asks for the release, the landlord grants it from a date six weeks out, and the deposit comes back less an agreed sum for repainting the hallway.

Illustrative example

A tenant lets the apartment on a booking site for a run of short stays without telling the landlord anything. The landlord hears about it from a neighbor.

How the wording applies

A sublet made without complying with the section is a substantial breach of the lease in the section's own words, and the tenant remains liable on the lease throughout. Compliance would not have settled everything either: the section says nothing about the Multiple Dwelling Law or local rules on short stays, so whether the stays were permitted at all sits outside it.

How the parties settled it

The listings come down, the tenant hands over the platform's payout record and pays the landlord an agreed share of it, and the tenancy continues on written terms that rule out stays of under thirty days.

How courts have read it

Decisions construing this provision. The question and the summary are ours; the quoted sentence is the court's own words, taken from the published opinion. These are the decisions in our corpus, not every decision there is, and nothing here predicts any other case. Reported 2003 to 2017.

Bean v. Morgan Gun Hill, LLC, 51 Misc. 3d 386 (2015)

trial courts

What the court had to decide

Whether the landlord's refusal to consent to an assignment of the lease, based on a lease provision prohibiting assignment, was unreasonable under Real Property Law § 226-b, thereby releasing the tenant from further liability.

What it held

The court held that the lease provision prohibiting assignment was null and void under Real Property Law § 226-b(6), and because the landlord unreasonably withheld consent to assignment, the tenant was released from all further liability under the lease and entitled to return of her security deposit plus damages.

In the court's words
Therefore, under Real Property Law § 226-b (1), as plaintiff provided 30 days’ notice to landlord of her intent to terminate the lease (as early as June 19, 2014) and since defendant refused to consent to any assignment of the lease on July 9, 2014, the statutory remedy provides plaintiff Bean is released from all further liability under the lease.

Source: Caselaw Access Project, CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication).

Related sections

N.Y. Real Property Law § 235-f One Roommate Allowed: N.Y. Real Property Law § 235-f N.Y. Real Property Law § 227-e Landlord must re-rent: N.Y. Real Property Law § 227-e N.Y. Real Property Law § 234 RPL § 234: if the lease gives the landlord legal costs, the tenant gets them too N.Y. Real Property Law § 235-c Refuse unfair lease clause: N.Y. Real Property Law § 235-c

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We copy this text from the official publisher and re-check it against that source on every page load, but we cannot guarantee it is complete, current or free of error, and we accept no liability for any reliance on it. An amendment can take effect before a consolidation catches up. The publisher's own copy is linked below; where the two differ, it is the official one that counts.

This page reproduces the text of N.Y. Real Property Law § 226-b in force at the date shown and explains it in general terms. It is not legal advice and takes no account of the circumstances of your case, which can change the answer completely. For a live dispute, for limitation periods, and before taking any step in court, consult a qualified lawyer in New York.

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