The mayor, nonetheless, stopped in need of endorsing the eviction moratorium advocates have demanded. He additionally introduced that the town would put a six-month pause on lien gross sales for excellent metropolis money owed owed by property house owners.
Metropolis Corridor mentioned the workplace will coordinate throughout businesses to flag suspicious property filings, work with legislation enforcement, conduct outreach, join owners with authorized assist and enhance data-sharing. Mamdani mentioned it might additionally discover city- and state-level laws associated to deed theft.
Mamdani created the Workplace of Deed Theft Prevention by way of govt order, and will likely be housed inside the Division of Finance. Will probably be led by Peter White, a longtime house owner help legal professional at Entry Justice Brooklyn.
Hizzoner framed the announcement as a response to a broader disaster, not simply to this week’s occasions. Requested in regards to the timing after Ossé’s Wednesday arrest throughout a protest over an eviction in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Mamdani mentioned the workplace had been in growth “for months” and traced it to his marketing campaign promise.
What the brand new deed theft prevention workplace will do
Talking in Mattress-Stuy, Mamdani mentioned greater than 3,500 deed theft complaints have been filed in New York Metropolis between 2013 and 2023, primarily in Brooklyn and Queens, citing Lawyer Common Letitia James’ workplace. He mentioned 517 complaints have been registered in 2025 alone, up from 149 in 2023, and tied the difficulty to what he described because the broader lack of Black New Yorkers from the town.
He mentioned the workplace would work with the Fee on Human Rights, the Division of Housing Preservation and Growth, the Lawyer Common’s Workplace and district attorneys, amongst others, and can be tasked with each prevention and response.
White, the brand new director, mentioned the workplace would concentrate on three foremost areas: deed fraud identification, prevention, and correction and remediation. He mentioned most of the individuals most susceptible to those scams are seniors in Brooklyn and Queens and mentioned the workplace would assist coordinate the work of attorneys and housing professionals already helping owners.
The occasion doubled as a present of political help from elected officers and advocates who’ve been urgent the difficulty for months. James known as deed theft “a heartless crime” and mentioned the 2023 state legislation criminalizing it gave prosecutors jurisdiction to pursue such circumstances and “pauses eviction proceedings with a deed theft case that is pending, so that families can stay in their homes and justice runs its course.”
She additionally known as for expanded authorized illustration for owners and for cease-and-desist designations in central Brooklyn.
Ossé, who appeared on the occasion, mentioned his workplace had labored with Mamdani and his staff to assist conceive the brand new workplace and known as the announcement the results of “pressure, advocacy and organizing.” He described deed theft as an “epidemic” in central Brooklyn and mentioned the workplace was an indication the town was lastly taking the difficulty significantly.
Talking to reporters, Mamdani declined to relitigate the precise Bedford-Stuyvesant case that led to Ossé’s arrest. Requested in regards to the legal professional common’s prior dedication that the dispute was a property matter moderately than deed theft, he mentioned he would depart the “exact terminology” and authorized dedication to these charged with prosecuting it, however mentioned the episode was “a glimpse into a much larger crisis” affecting owners throughout the town.
Nonetheless, AG James, in talking to The Choose Road Journal after Friday’s occasion, backed up Ossé’s declare, saying “it originated from deed theft, but it was an eviction proceeding.”
Mamdani punts on endorsing eviction moratorium
Lawyer Common Letitia James speaks throughout Friday’s announcement of New York Metropolis’s new Workplace of Deed Theft Prevention in Bedford-Stuyvesant.Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
Pressed on whether or not he supported the eviction moratorium sought by Ossé and different advocates, Mamdani didn’t endorse it. He mentioned the brand new workplace would overview laws at each the town and state ranges, together with that proposal, and mentioned additional motion would additionally require involvement from the legislature and the judiciary.
Mamdani additionally mentioned the workplace would work throughout the town authorities, together with with the NYPD and the New York Metropolis Sheriff, on how the town responds to those circumstances. When requested about funding after a reporter famous that the present allocation appeared far under the $10 million he had mentioned through the marketing campaign, Mamdani mentioned the workplace was baselined at $1 million in fiscal 12 months 2027 and past, and that funding would develop as White constructed it out.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams additionally tied the announcement to a broader political message, saying “the left cares about homeowners and home ownership” and arguing that Black owners had lengthy been ignored in conversations about housing and displacement.
Brooklyn District Lawyer Eric Gonzalez mentioned his workplace had prosecuted circumstances involving 73 stolen properties lately, together with one current conviction involving 11 properties, however mentioned prevention and authorized illustration have been nonetheless urgently wanted as a result of many circumstances turn into more durable to unwind after years of civil litigation.
Advocate Evangeline Byers of the Individuals’s Coalition to Cease Deed Theft known as the brand new workplace a “huge step forward” and mentioned it gave owners actual hope in what can in any other case really feel like a hopeless scenario. Assemblymember Stefani Zinerman known as central Brooklyn “ground zero” for deed theft and mentioned the town, legislature, judiciary, NYPD, sheriff and marshals all wanted to be “working off the same script.”
Don’t lien on me
Mamdani additionally used the occasion to announce a six-month pause on the town’s tax lien sale, the town’s foremost mechanism for implementing unpaid property taxes and different property-based expenses. Below that system, debt tied to unpaid expenses akin to water or sewer payments can turn into eligible on the market after one to a few years and be offered to the third-party Tax Lien Belief, which then pursues assortment and might put house owners on a path towards foreclosures.
Mamdani, who beforehand labored as a foreclosure-prevention housing counselor, mentioned no household ought to should face dropping a house over a comparatively small debt, akin to a $5,000 water invoice, and mentioned the administration would use the pause to conduct a full overview of the system.
“We know deed theft is not the only thing pushing families out of their homes. There is also the tax lien sale,” he mentioned. “We have made that decision with the intention of undertaking a full review of the system with equity at the heart of it.”
An April report from the town’s Impartial Finances Workplace discovered that whereas most house owners who obtain lien-sale notices finally keep away from the ultimate sale, the system stays concentrated in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.
In 2025, lower than 15% of the eligible properties notified ended up within the closing lien sale, the bottom share within the years reviewed by IBO. However 72% of liens offered on one- to three-family properties have been in majority-Black and/or Hispanic neighborhoods, up from 62% in 2021. The report mentioned those self same neighborhoods have traditionally confronted redlining, disinvestment, and predatory lending, and that the lien-sale system continues to reflect these inequities.
The IBO additionally discovered that the burden of debt has grown. In 2025, the variety of liens offered on one- to three-family properties rose 77% from the final sale in 2021, whereas multifamily liens rose 48% and business liens rose 35%. Adjusted for inflation, common debt per lien offered doubled for multifamily properties and quadrupled for business properties in contrast with 2015.
The report additionally mentioned practically 600 one- to three-family properties with liens offered earlier than 2025 have been in energetic foreclosures proceedings as of the top of 2025, and that a minimum of 1,008 lien-sale properties had gone by way of the ultimate step of foreclosures and been offered at public public sale during the last decade, together with a minimum of 214 one- to three-family properties.
James thanked the mayor for pausing this system and auditing it, arguing that promoting liens to personal buyers typically places households on a quick observe to dropping their properties.
Meeting Member Stefani Zinerman additionally praised the halt however mentioned she desires the tax lien sale abolished altogether, arguing that banks and authorities alike have to do extra to put money into communities like central Brooklyn moderately than go away owners susceptible to predatory practices.
The pause additionally lands in the midst of a wider coverage battle over what ought to substitute the town’s lien-sale system. The Metropolis Council renewed the lien sale for 2025 by way of Native Regulation 82 of 2024, lawmakers in January 2026 handed payments aimed toward changing the Tax Lien Belief with a metropolis land financial institution by 2029. Supporters say the measure would transfer the town away from the private-sector lien sale mannequin, although the main points of how the land financial institution would buy and implement liens stay undefined.
The IBO additionally diminished anticipated tax revenues by $80 million within the preliminary finances to replicate Mamdani’s choice.
