Brooklyn Family Wins Pied-à-Terre Relief After Speaking to The New York Sun

Marty Baumrind and his daughter, Lucy, were on the verge of hiring an attorney to help them escape New York City’s pied-à-terre tax until a local nonprofit put them in touch with The New York Sun.Faced with a looming exemption request deadline of August 21 — now extended to September 18, time was ticking for the family to prove that the home continuously occupied by Mr. Baumrind and his wife for 35 years was not a second home used occasionally. After hours wasted across four days trying to log on to the Department of Finance’s website, the pair was no closer to securing the exemption to which Mr. Baumrind was clearly entitled.Then, the Sun shared their story. “Thank you, because if it wasn’t for you and your article, I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with the city,” Mr. Baumrind let the Sun know on Tuesday after a Department of Finance agent secured the household’s exemption from the second home surcharge.With permission, the Sun had given Mr. Baumrind’s phone number to the Department of Finance after his case piqued the interest of the agency’s director of external affairs. The Sun had reached out to the department for answers as to why so many people can’t even log on to the exemption application portal.This week, an agency representative reached out to the Baumrinds, and after more than three hours on the phone, Mr. Baumrind is in the clear — for now. “ We were able to give her a copy of the front page of my taxes for ’24 and my driver’s license, and she wrote that off for this year,” he said. “Apparently, we have to recertify every year in the future.”But even the Department of Finance’s agent couldn’t resolve the surcharge letter facing Mr. Baumrind’s mother, who is 96 and lives in an assisted living facility though she still owns her three-family home in Murray Hill. Her exemption application is in limbo with approximately 2,800 others that have been opened, but not completed. The city does not currently have an official policy on how to handle residences whose owners have had to vacate because they can no longer live on their own.Tenants live in one of the three units owned by the elder Ms. Baumrind while the rest of the home is “filled to the brim,” according to Mr. Baumrind, who described his mother as “a bit of a hoarder.” Further complicating matters, the tenants are international, which can present challenges for the computer system, according to real estate attorneys familiar with the exemption application process. Landlords are asked to provide details including their tenants’ Social Security numbers, which foreign renters don’t always have or are reluctant to share.“Totally unnecessary,” Mr. Baumrind said of his family’s hassle. “ Think of the incredible expense the city is going through in trying to administer this.” The city’s expense has been compounded since Friday, when a trio of New Yorkers filed a lawsuit demanding the city halt its tumultuous rollout of the pied-à-terre tax. A judge quickly backed their call to take down a roster of New York homeowners from the surcharge website and halt implementation of the fees. The city has appealed to keep moving forward with the program. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he was exploring legal pathways at the federal level to end the program, whose operations were rushed into existence to make a January 1, 2027, deadline to send new tax bills.“In my personal history of 54 years of dealing with the city, it has always been bad,” Mr. Baumrind told the Sun. “But this is really like a war on property and wealth.”

Brooklyn Family Wins Pied-à-Terre Relief After Speaking to The New York Sun

Brooklyn Family Wins Pied-à-Terre Relief After Speaking to The New York Sun

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