Judge Orders Pause of Mamdani’s Pied-à-Terre Tax

A Staten Island judge has temporarily blocked the rollout of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax after homeowners sued, arguing that the city wrongly flagged their primary residences.

On Aug. 10, Judge Wayne M. Ozzi of the State Supreme Court on Staten Island granted a temporary restraining order requested by the group of homeowners. 

The lawsuit, filed on Aug. 7, claims that the city improperly identified the group’s primary homes as subject to the surcharge. 

The lawsuit states that the mailed notices “do not constitute proper notice under Tax Law,” and the judge sided with the plaintiffs, who said the city unlawfully shifted the burden onto them to prove that they should not be taxed.

It states that those who received the notices, despite living in their New York City homes as their primary residences, now face “irreparable harm.”

“These homeowners must now prove that they live in their own homes, to the City Respondents’ ‘satisfaction,’” the lawsuit states, calling it an “illegal burden.”

It notes that they are forced to navigate a “murky exemption” process without any certainty of outcome or the prospect of ever recovering those lost resources.

The plaintiff cited expert analysis from former New York City Department of Finance Commissioner Martha Stark, who said there are only approximately 24,000 properties in New York City that meet the market value thresholds set in the state statute, and that the overwhelming majority of these are primary residences, not largely unused “second homes.”

The next hearing is set for Aug. 31.

The spokesman for the mayor’s office, Matt Rauschenbach, told The Epoch Times by email that the Law Department will appeal the ruling immediately, which will stay the order, and that the city will continue with the pied-à-terre tax’s implementation.

“We disagree with today’s ruling, but we are confident in both the pied-à-terre surcharge and the City’s ability to implement it fairly and effectively,” he said.

Rauschenbach said that the surcharge “asks those who own second homes valued at $5 million or more to contribute their fair share to the city they benefit from.”

The pied-à-terre tax, which uses a French term for a secondary residence that translates as “foot on the ground,” is a surcharge on second homes in New York City. It was proposed by Mamdani and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in April.

The mayor’s office, in a statement at the time, said this would levy an annual surcharge on “one to three family homes, condominiums and co-ops valued above $5 million when owners have a separate primary residence outside of New York City.”

Mamdani said that the measure is expected to generate $500 million per ‌year for the largest U.S. city by targeting “ultrawealthy out-of-city residents and global elites who use New York City real estate as a vehicle for wealth storage rather than as homes.”

The mayor said he was targeting thousands of properties “owned by foreign oligarchs and the global ultrarich” and specifically named the properties of American hedge fund manager Ken Griffin and Russian-born businessman and naturalized U.S. citizen Alexander Varshavsky.

On July 23, the mayor and city Department of Finance Commissioner Richard Lee began notifying property owners by mail that they may be subject to the pied-à-terre tax.

“If you have a second home in New York City worth more than $5M, check your mailbox when you’re back in the five boroughs, because you’ve got mail,” Mamdani wrote in a July 23 post on X.

The city then published a searchable database with the names and addresses of the more than 900,000 properties that may be subject to the pied-à-terre surcharge and mailed about 17,000 letters warning owners about it.

In his recent ruling, Ozzi ordered the city to remove this list. As of this writing, the list is still accessible to the public.

Self-described democratic socialist Mamdani was elected in November 2025 to serve as the mayor of New York City, the most populous city in the country.

Mamdani ran on a platform of city-run grocery stores, free buses, rent freezes for stabilized tenants, free childcare, a minimum wage of $30 per hour by 2030, a tax on those making more than $1 million annually, and the creation of a department of community safety.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly called Mamdani a “communist.”

Arjun Singh and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.