I hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year despite all this snow Mother Nature has decided to dump on New York. Recently, Huff Post posted an article highlighting some of the new real estate laws New Yorkers should be aware of this year. I thought this article was informative, yet brief, so I wanted to share it with you. These new real estate laws include changes in flood insurance, estate and gift tax reforms, brokerage rebates and sprinkler systems.

The article pointed out that homeowners with costly flood insurance premiums may finally get a break due to the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 which was passed to help mitigate some of those rate increases. New York also passed laws that have increased the estate tax exemption to $2,062,500 and allow real estate brokers to give their clients rebates, a move that may help them attract new customers.

Lastly, New York landlords must now provide notice to tenants on whether their rental units have fire safety sprinkler systems. We wrote a newsletter on this topic that discusses the new law in greater detail and points out the specific language that landlords must include in the notice to tenants. Our newsletter on this sprinkler system notice can be accessed by clicking HERE and to view the entire article by HuffPost click HERE.