In 2019 the newly elected, left-leaning, State Legislature passed the Housing Stability Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA), which literally turned almost a half-century of landlord and tenant law on its head. This law was clearly designed to help tenants and to make it more difficult for landlords to commence or follow through on any type of eviction proceedings. Notwithstanding the chaos that it created in NYC's Housing Court, which was already struggling with an overwhelming caseload, no one could predict that in March 2020, the entire NYS court system would come to a grinding halt with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In time, as the courts slowly became operational to a degree, the methodology of dealing with cases in every court was permanently altered.

In a new effort to protect tenants from eviction as the world was coping in virtually complete lockdown, the woke Legislature, in its "infinite" wisdom, passed legislation that would indefinitely prevent landlords from either moving forward with matters commenced pre-pandemic or initiating new ones.

On June 30, 2020, the governor signed the Tenant Safety Harbor Act (TSHA) (Chapter 127 of the laws of New York 2020), which provided protection from eviction for renters who had experienced financial hardship during the pandemic. It prohibited courts from evicting residential tenants who experienced financial hardship for nonpayment of rent that occurred or became due during the COVID-19 period. It applied to any unpaid rent accrued between March 7, 2020, and a yet to be determined date when COVID related restrictions would be lifted. The statute did not define the term "hardship". Thereafter on Dec. 28, 2020, the legislature passed a statute known as "CEEFPA" (COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Protection Act). This statute stayed all pending residential eviction proceedings for 60 days and provided a further stay through May 1, 2021, to those tenants who provided the landlord a hardship declaration declaring they have been negatively impacted as a result of the pandemic. For people experiencing financial hardship and those who were unable to move during this period due to an increased risk of severe illness or death due to COVID-19, this statute also stayed all pending residential procedures for an indefinite period with no recourse for the landlord to contest any cases where a "Covid Hardship Declaration" was presented to the landlord or the state or the court. It further mandated that the landlord provide these forms to every tenant and or household that they rented to, adding yet an additional burden on the landlord. As a result of a tenant's or occupant's ability to "self-declare" his or her hardship without any further documentation, causing all pending or future litigation to cease, an action was brought to challenge CEEFPA's constitutionality, which ultimately ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court.