In 1995, the Court of Appeals in Holy Properties Ltd., L.P. v. Kenneth Cole Productions, 87 N.Y.2d 130 (1995), threw landlord tenant law into a tailspin when it held that landlords had no duty to mitigate their damages by re-letting the premises where the tenant abandons prior to the expiration of the lease. Although Holy Properties dealt with a commercial lease, courts widely extended the application of this rule to residential leases as well.
However, the recently enacted Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (the 2019 Tenant Act), which Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law on June 14, 2019, has now completely abrogated the no-mitigation rule in the context of residential leases.
