New York City Civil Court
court

The Civil Court of the City of New York is a civil court of the New York State Unified Court System in New York City that decides lawsuits involving claims for damages up to $50,000 and includes a small claims part (small claims court) for cases involving amounts up to $10,000 as well as a housing part (housing court) for landlord-tenant matters, and also handles other civil matters referred by the New York Supreme Court. The court has divisions by county (borough), but it is a single citywide court.
It handles about 25% of all the New York state and local courts' total filings. The court consists of 3 parts: Housing, Small Claims, and General Civil. The court's jurisdiction includes ejectment actions, replevin of personal property within monetary limits, equity jurisdiction limited to real property actions, real property actions such as partitions, foreclosures within monetary limits, and actions to rescind or reform a contract.
Housing Court
Housing Court is devoted to the enforcement of state and local housing standards laws. The housing part's (HP) fundamental purpose is to ensure that landlords provide safe and habitable housing. The majority of cases are eviction proceedings over unpaid rent.
The city's right-to-counsel law guarantees free legal services to all tenants facing eviction. People with gross household incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level can receive "full legal representation", whereas everyone can receive "brief legal assistance", regardless of immigration status and provided no later than their first scheduled appearance.
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This entry incorporates text from “New York City Civil Court” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.