New York City RPIE

What You Need to Know About Real Property Income and Expense Statement Filings

The City of New York enjoys a wide variety of ways to regulate real property within its boundaries. For those properties not in compliance with the various rules and regulations, the City can impose monetary penalties, which if remain unpaid, can be transferred to the Department of Finance for assessment on a real property tax bill.

One of the existing, yet lesser-known regulations can be found at New York Administrative Code § 11-208.1- Income and Expense Statements. This section of the NYC Administrative Code requires that certain income producing properties with an actual assessed value of more than $40,000.00 must file a Real Property Income and Expense Statement (“RPIE”) before June 1 of each year containing rent roll information for the property. Once filed, this information is used to determine an accurate value of the property for the following tax assessment year.

Failure to file a timely RPIE will result in penalty fees that will increase for each year that an RPIE remains outstanding. See, NYC Real Property Income and Expense Statement Filing Information, 2023. Failure to timely pay a penalty fee will result in the fee being transferred to the Department of Finance for collection on the next real property tax bill.

At Stewart NY Metro, if a property owner subject to RPIE filings fails to file, a notation regarding such failure will appear on a routine tax search included in our title commitment alerting all parties that a penalty fee for a late filing may exist. Additionally, if a party to a transaction simply wants to inquire whether a property at issue is possibly subject to a late RPIE filing penalty fee, the City of New York maintains a searchable database by property address, which contains a list of properties that failed to file by the June 1 deadline and thus may be subject to a penalty fee.

Best Practices

If it is confirmed that the premises at issue is subject to RPIE, it would be prudent to ensure that same is addressed prior to closing by:

1. reviewing the municipal tax search to see if there is an open RPIE notation;
2. requiring that a filing be had prior to closing and that all penalties are paid prior to transfer to the Department of Finance; and/or
3. similar to the adjustments made for future tax restoration, the parties may want to consider a monetary adjustment or escrow between the parties to account for a penalty that could appear on a future real property tax bill, as a penalty fee entered on the tax roll after the date of a title policy will not be a covered event.

For helpful RPIE resources, which include penalty fee amounts, properties subject to exemption and a general question and answer section, together with links to those properties located in the five boroughs which failed to file RPIE statements as of June 1, 2022 visit the NYC Department of Finance Property page.