The City Council’s two newly elected members have not taken office as scheduled due to questions about whether a winning candidate from Brooklyn can be sworn in if he does not reside in the district he was elected to represent.

The council speaker, Christine Quinn, canceled yesterday’s 2 p.m. swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected representatives of central Brooklyn and southern Staten Island and has not rescheduled the event, Ms. Quinn’s spokeswoman, Maria Alvarado, said.

The decision to delay the swearing-in stands in stark contrast to past protocol, when council members who won special elections took office one or two days after results were tallied. Ms. Alvarado said the council is abandoning that practice, and from now on will allow newly elected representatives to be sworn in only after the election results are certified.

“This is how the council will proceed with swearing-in council members-elect,” she said yesterday at City Hall.

Dr. Mathieu Eugene, a Haitian-born physician who has generated much excitement since his win because he is the first Haitian elected to the council, lives in Brooklyn’s Canarsie neighborhood, outside District 40 in central Brooklyn, where he was voted to succeed Rep. Yvette Clarke in Tuesday’s special election.

A columnist for the Daily News, Errol Louis, was the first to report that Dr. Eugene may be ineligible to hold office because he lives outside the district.

An adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School, Jerry Goldfeder, said election law is clear: It requires candidates to live in the district they will represent at the time of the election.

“Assuming he didn’t live in the district this last Tuesday, he was not eligible to be sworn in and he cannot rectify that by moving in now,” Mr. Goldfeder said. “As a result, there is a vacancy and the mayor ought to call a new special election.”

On Wednesday, Dr. Eugene said that once he was sworn in to office, he would have time to move into the district.

His senior adviser and communications director, Joe Placide, said yesterday Dr. Eugene signed a lease on February 1 for a three-bedroom apartment in District 40, but said he did not know if Dr. Eugene had paid rent for the apartment and declined to give its address. Mr. Placide did not respond to several phone calls for follow-up comment.

If the election results are not challenged in court, it is unclear who will be responsible for ensuring Dr. Eugene and other elected officials meet the eligibility requirements of the state’s public officers law. Ms. Alvarado said yesterday past councils assumed that when the board of elections certified results, it made sure the winning politicians met the legal requirements to hold office.

A spokeswoman for the New York City Board of Elections, Valerie Vazquez, said the board does not have the authority to determine whether a candidate meets the legal requirements of the elected office. Ms. Alvarado said the council is seeking clarification from the state attorney general about whether there is a state entity charged with making sure the eligibility laws are met or if it falls to the council to make the determination.

She said she is not aware of anyone calling for a new election.

This is not the first time attention has been drawn to where a candidate from this area of Brooklyn resides. Last year, when Council Member Yvette Clarke ran against Council Member David Yassky in a racially charged bid for a congressional seat, she routinely pointed out that Mr. Yassky, who is white, moved to the district with the intention of splitting the vote among the African-American candidates. Ms. Clarke, who won that race, endorsed Dr. Eugene.

Another candidate to replace Ms. Clarke, Joel Toney, issued a press release on January 28 calling Dr. Eugene “an imported candidate” who lives miles outside the district.

“In order for one to represent a district, they must live in the district,” Mr. Toney, a former ambassador of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to the United Nations, told The New York Sun. “Why? Because only one who lives in the district understands the needs of the district.”

Mr. Toney said he pointed out during the campaign that at least four of the candidates lived outside the district.

“No other candidate has made it an issue because many of the candidates live outside the district,” he said. “They try to come in and steal the district from its residents.”