Southampton Village Adopts Rental Registry Law

With just two weeks left on the calendar until Memorial Day weekend, the Southampton Village Board finally passed a rental registry law during its May 12 meeting.

The law went through several drafts after village residents expressed concerns that earlier versions of the legislation would have asked too much of tenants, raising privacy concerns.

Over the last few months, many municipalities have been creating rental registries so that residents who rent their homes out during summer can collect a full season of rent payments in advance. That practice had been common for years, until the state adopted the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act in 2019, prohibiting landlords from collecting more than one month’s rent in advance.

It was a statute meant to protect year-round tenants but had an unintended effect on homeowners who choose to move out of their homes during the summer months and make extra cash by renting them to seasonal visitors to the area. A new state law adopted last fall freed homeowners who rent seasonally from the one-month cap on advance payments. But to qualify, landlords must register their homes with a municipal entity — which involves attesting to the rental being short-term, naming the tenants and providing proof that they actually have a home elsewhere that they will return to at the end of the rental period.

At the May 12 meeting, Mayor Jesse Warren described the proposed village law as much less onerous than the rental permit programs in place in Southampton and East Hampton towns, saying those programs are “more heavy-handed,” while adding that the village rental registry law is less than three pages and allows landlords to redact sensitive financial information. He also pointed out that it’s an optional program — village residents choosing to rent out their homes for the summer only need to register if they want to collect all the rent up front.

​Theresa Quigley, the in-house attorney for real estate firm Saunders & Associates, who also had previously served on the East Hampton Town Board, spoke at the meeting and said the registry law that Southampton Village adopted is “by far the fairest I’ve seen.”

The resolution to adopt the law passed, but not unanimously. Trustee Joe McLoughlin voted against the measure after expressing his desire to see the motion tabled, saying he still had concerns that the Building Department might need to hire additional staff to facilitate the registry, which could cause a backlog of work.

“The village has nearly 1,000 open building permits, some dating back to the year 2000, and I’m concerned that this process will backlog the staff and cause confusion because it’s optional,” he said, while also pointing out that the board had not yet decided on a dollar amount for the registry permit fee.

In order to qualify as a seasonal rental — and take advantage of the amendment to state law that allows all the rent to be collected up front — the Southampton Village law states that a rental must be for a period of 120 days or less, the tenant must have a primary residence to return to, and the address of that primary residence must be listed on the lease.

To register a seasonal dwelling unit with the Southampton Village Building Department, which will operate the registry, the landlords/homeowners must provide the names and mailing addresses of any and all homeowners, a copy of the lease, the address of the home, the number of tenants requested, an affidavit that the owner will be responsible for garbage removal, the name and legal address of the tenant, and the period of proposed occupancy.

Financial information on the lease can be redacted.