Upon recommendation of the Committee statutes were enacted, providing as follows.

1. Where the time is not particularly specified in an agreement for occupation of premises in the City of New York, it shall be deemed to continue until the first of October following such agree

ment.

2. A new section of the Penal Law, known as section 2040, making the failure to furnish water, heat, light, power, elevator service, telephone service or interference with the quiet enjoyment of the premises a misdemeanor.

3. An amendment to section 2244 of the Code of Civil Procedure, permitting the court to give affirmative judgment upon a defense or counterclaim set up in a summary proceeding.

4. Providing that the landlord seeking to dispossess a tenant on the ground that he was objectionable must prove to satisfaction of the court that the tenant was objectionable.

5. An amendment to Code of Civil Procedure, providing that in an action to recover real property a tenant might put in an oral answer setting up the same defense or counterclaim that he could interpose in a special proceeding and authorizing the court to render affirmative judgment thereon.

6. Permitting a tenant sued for rent to set up the defense that the rent demanded is unreasonable, unjust and the agreement under which it is sought to be recovered oppressive, and providing also that an increase of twenty-five per cent in rent was presumptively unreasonable.

7. Permitting the justice of the Municipal Court in a proceeding to dispossess for non-payment of rent, to grant a stay not exceeding twelve months upon condition that the tenant pay such rent as the court should fix as reasonable during the time of the stay.

8. Repealing section 230 of the Real Property Law as to the liability of a tenant holding over.

9. That the landlord should have no right to dispossess for non-payment of rent if the amount demanded was greater than that paid for the preceding month, or if it had been increased more than twenty-five per cent over what it was one year prior thereto.

10. Providing that the landlord must give to the tenant thirty days notice to move, to be served in the same manner as a precept in summary proceedings.

The most important of the preceding enactments were the one providing for the special defense as to the reasonableness of the rent; the one giving to justices the power to stay the execution of the warrant; and the penal statute making it a misdemeanor to fail to furnish the facilities called for in the agreement. The purpose of the Legislature had been to keep the tenants in the apartments occupied by them and to protect them from the extortionate demand of rent, and also to prevent their being forced out by refusal to furnish them with the necessary conveniences incident to their occupancy. Experience during the time between the adjournment of the Legislature in April and the first of September showed that the results sought for had been only partially secured. The provision for the stay was effective in preventing immediate dispossessing of tenants, but it left them in great anxiety and uncertainty as to whether their stays would be continued in case of their inability to find other quarters. The increasing of rents continued. By September of 1920 so many thousands of notices to quit had been served that the unrest amongst the rent payers of New York City amounted almost to panic and to meet the serious situation which had arisen, a special session of the Legislature was summoned by Governor Alfred E. Smith for September 20, 1920.

The Committee submitted a brief report and recommended the adoption of additional legislation as follows:

1. Amending the Code of Civil Procedure taking away the right of the landlord to dispossess a tenant holding over except in four

cases.

a. That the tenant was objectionable and the fact that he was objectionable must be established to the satisfaction of the court. b. That the owner being a natural person seeks in good faith to recover the premises for his own use and occupancy as a dwelling.

c. For the purpose of demolishing the premises in order to erect a new building, plans for which have been filed and approved by the Superintendent of Buildings.

d. To recover premises in good faith sold to a corporation formed under a cooperative ownership plan the entire stock of which is held by stockholders in proportion to the space occupied by them and all apartments leased to stockholders for their personal occupancy.

2. Taking away the right of the landlord to disposses a tenant where the rent had been increased over the amount paid for the month preceding.

3. Amending the statute providing for the special defense of unreasonableness by providing for the filing of a bill of particulars; that a judgment recovered by default should contain a provision that if the judgment be not paid within five days after entry and service of a copy upon the plaintiff, the defendant should be dispossessed; Providing for the deposit of the rent with the clerk of the court; Giving power to the court to open a default proper case; providing for deposit in case of appeal.

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4. Providing that no action to recover the possession of real property, occupied for dwelling purposes in a city of one million or more shall be brought, except in the four instances in which a holdover tenant might be dispossessed in summary proceedings.

5. Exempting dwelling houses from local taxation until January 1, 1932, if in course of construction at the time of the passage of the Act, or commenced before April 1, 1922 and completed within two years thereafter.

6. An Act permitting the court to stay the execution of the warrant to dispossess pending a motion to vacate the order directing the issuance of the warrant and to vacate the warrant if the order be vacated.

7. Amending section 2040 of the Penal Law, making the refusal to furnish the usual facilities required by a lease, express or implied a misdemeanor and making it applicable to the agent, manager, superintendent or janitor, as well as the owner or lessor.

8. Making the bonds of the Land Bank of the State of New York a legal investment for savings banks.

9. Extending the time of service of a precept from three to five days and making the return day ten instead of five days.

10. An Act taking away the jurisdiction of the justice of peace in the city of Yonkers to take cognizance of an action to recover

rent.

The constitutionality of a number of these laws affecting the right to disposses tenants and giving the special defense of unreasonableness of the rent, were attacked and the cases were carried to the Court of Appeals of the State of New York and the Supreme Court of the United States, in a number of cases involving various phases of the laws. Decisions sustaining the constitutionality of the laws in every case were rendered.

At the regular session of the Legislature of 1921 some further amendments to the statutes heretofore referred to were adopted as follows:

1. An act incorporating the law providing for dispossessing holdover tenants in the Civil Practice Act.

2. To incorporate in the Civil Practice Act the provision of the law that a tenant could not be dispossessed for non-payment of rent if the rent had been increased over that for the month preceding.

3. An amendment to the law permitting the reasonableness of the rent to be set up as a defense, as follows:

(a) Providing that the defense should not be allowed if three successive monthly installments had been paid after the commencement of the term and the passage of the amendment.

(b) Providing that all actions for rent if brought in the Supreme or County Court must be in the county where the property is situated and if in a Municipal Court in the district in which the property is situated.

4. An amendment to the Tax Exemption Law, having the effect of validating the ordinance of the Board of Aldermen of the City of New York, adopted February 15, 1921, by which the City of New York accepted the privileges permitted by said act, with certain conditions.

The statute permitting the tenant to set up the defence that the rent is unjust and unreasonable and the agreement under which it is sought to be recovered oppressive and those restricting the right of a landlord todispossess a tenant are emergency laws and remain in force only until November first, 1922 unless further extended by the Legislature.

CHAPTER 2.

AUTHORITY AND SCOPE OF INVESTIGATION.

(1) Creation of Committee.

Pursuant to a resolution adopted by the Legislature on April 18, 1919, your Committee was appointed to:

"investigate and ascertain all housing and tenement house conditions and the causes for the lack of construction of new buildings, flats and apartments for rent in cities, and especially in the city of New York, and the causes of the continuous increases in rents, charged to tenants of apartments, flats and dwelling places in cities and especially in the city of New York, to report and disclose the facts showing whether such increase in the lack of construction be justified or not *** and to formulate such legislative plan as the Committee may deem practicable and effective to prevent the exaction of excessive rents from such tenants."

After the adjournment of the Legislature, your Committee. duly organized and began the investigations directed by such resolution.

The investigation disclosed that there existed such an alarming shortage of dwellings in the large communities of the State, and especially in the city of New York, and that housing conditions were generally so deplorable, and growing steadily worse, that there existed an emergency that would not only justify but require the Legislature to enact remedial laws.

It became evident as investigations proceeded that the housing congestion and its attendant hardships were not primarily due to rent profiteering, but that the latter, which had become general and extortionate, was the effect and not the cause of the former. The root of the evil was not located in the relationship of landlord and tenant but extended deeply into the industrial and mercantile world. The prohibitive rents that were being demanded and to which the tenants were forced to submit, were found to be due mainly to the operation of the inexorable economic laws of supply and demand, to which was added the prohibitive cost of building, largely brought about by the artificial conditions hereinafter described.