The super wealthy are accustomed to finding ways to shrink their tax bills. But with New York City's new levy on seven-figure pieds-à-terre, many are learning they might just have to pony up.
Championed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul in May, the surcharge applies to second homes in New York City over certain values. The annual levy, with rates as high as 6.5% on a property's assessed value on top of regular property taxes, goes into effect on July 1.
For some owners, the expected surcharges are eye-watering. Pierre Debbas, managing partner at the law firm Romer Debbas, figures the charge could basically double the property taxes on a $5 million apartment.
The scramble for workarounds began almost immediately. Luxury brokers and tax attorneys said clients floated transferring properties into LLCs or trusts, turning them into $1-a-month rentals, rushing purchases to beat the July 1 deadline or securing a price just below the taxable threshold.
"The people who would be impacted by this policy are going to try to avoid this tax at any cost," Serhant agent Peter Zaitzeff said. "And they're usually very good at doing so."
But in this case, the loopholes are narrow and the penalties for trying to skirt the tax bill are steep. While there are a few legitimate exemptions, there's no obvious strategy to circumvent the new charge, said Ben Williams, who leads the property tax department for Rosenberg & Estis. "You either use it as your primary residence or not."
Pied-à-terre levies and the like are becoming increasingly popular as cities and states try to fill gaps in their budgets and grapple with the high cost of housing. It also has the benefit of being politically palatable, as the people subject to the tax typically vote where their primary residence is.
Last year Montana reformed its property tax system to shift more of the burden onto second homes. This summer Rhode Island is implementing a hike on homes worth more than $1 million that are occupied less than half of the year, dubbed the "Taylor Swift Tax" after the singer, who owns an estate on the Rhode Island shore.
By the end of August, New York will notify owners it determines weren't the primary residents of their NYC property as of January 2026 that they could be subject to the surcharge. Owners will have 30 days to prove either that they live there more than half the year or that they're eligible for one of the exemptions.
Primary resident
The most significant carve-out is the exemption for family members who occupy the property. Timothy Noonan, a partner at Hodgson Russ, said clients are inviting adult children or parents to move into their city condos full-time. Cousins don't count: The law only applies to a spouse, child, sibling, parent, grandparent or grandchild who makes the property their home.
LLCs and trusts, frequently floated as shields, offer little protection. The city can peel through any entity to the beneficial owner, meaning majority interest holders in LLCs and sole beneficiaries of trusts remain on the hook for the surcharge if it isn't their primary residence.
Renting out the unit also sidesteps the levy, but there are significant limits to this strategy. First, owners are only exempt if their tenants plan to live in the unit full-time. Real estate attorneys are scratching their heads over how that will work. What happens if renters move away in the middle of a lease? Even if they're year-round New Yorkers, who handles the paperwork?
"Tenants may not want to go through the headache of proving it is their primary residence," said Andrew Luftig, a real estate attorney at Chaves Perlowitz Luftig.
Second, the exemption for rental properties only applies to legitimate long-term leases at a fair market rate. Douglas Elliman broker Michelle Griffith helped the owner of a $9 million three-bedroom pied-à-terre in Tribeca list the property for $40,000 a month. If a tenant is willing to sign a 12-month lease, the owner won't owe the new tax. But a short-term lease or below-market rate arrangement won't count.
"You can't rent it out to your housekeeper or a kid for $1 a month," Williams said. "It's not time to get cute with this."
Below the threshold
The surcharge targeting pieds-à-terre will be levied in two phases. For the first two years, single-family homes with assessed values of $5 million or more will pay an extra 0.8% to 1.3%. Co-ops and condominiums, which tend to be assessed at values much lower than what they'd sell for, face the levy if their official valuations are $1 million or more. Comprising the majority of properties subject to the tax, these apartments will be subject to surcharges of 4% to 6.5%.
Beginning July 1, 2028, the city plans to shift to a new sales-based valuation system for co-ops and condos, and all second homes valued at $5 million or more under the new methodology will pay a rate between 0.8% and 1.3%.
Some pied-à-terre owners and buyers are already adjusting.
One owner cut the asking price for an Upper West Side condo to $4.69 million from $5.8 million after it sat on the market for a year, hoping to attract pied-à-terre buyers seeking to stay below the threshold, according to broker Donald Brennan of Engel & Völkers. Debbas predicted "property values in the high-end market will come down slightly" to adjust.
Katharine Finch, a partner at Goldberg Weprin Finkel Goldstein, cautioned that this strategy may only delay the inevitable. Property values can rise over time, and owners challenging assessments with misleading valuation evidence face penalties.
There are still plenty of questions about how the tax will be assessed and enforced, Debbas said, including how it will be imposed on co-ops. When the details become clearer, opportunities to avoid the tax might emerge, he said. But "don't hold your breath."
The more likely outcome, attorneys say, is a simple reckoning: Either a primary resident lives in the property — a tenant, owner or loved one — or it remains a pied-à-terre when the surcharge comes due.
For some, that will be a bridge or tunnel too far. The owner of a nearly $20 million Manhattan pied-à-terre who primarily lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, told Finch he'll likely sell his NYC apartment if he can't find a way around his estimated $210,000 second-home surcharge.
But there's a reason the very rich buy second homes rather than rent luxury suites by the night.
"Most people are going to want their stuff in their place," Luftig said. If so, "they'll have to deal with it."
