Many people know the television show “The People’s Court.” In that reality-TV show, parties to real small claims court cases agree to drop their cases, present them before a TV judge, and abide by the decision. (An inducement is that the TV show producers pay the judgments.)

Since 1934, New York State has had its own, real “People’s Court.” New York’s Small Claims Court are a low-cost, informal court where people can bring claims for relatively small amounts of money – up to $10,000 in New York City; $5,000 in city courts outside NYC and the District Courts in Nassau and Suffolk Counties; and $3,000 in town and village courts located across the state.

There are many virtues of the Small Claims Courts: The filing fees are modest, they generally operate more quickly and efficiently than higher courts, and you don’t need to hire an attorney. In its tenth decade of operation, the Court remains an essential do-it-yourself tool for New Yorkers to win back their hard-earned money.

Among the actions consumers can take, the Small Claims Court is widely used by tenants to resolve financial complaints against their landlords.

Landlords often take advantage of consumers in various ways, including by converting rental security deposits after tenants have vacated a rented apartment or home – notwithstanding that the rental premises were left in good condition and rent had been fully paid.

In reaction to those cases, in 2019 the Legislature enacted new protections, establishing tight timelines for the prompt return of residential rental security deposits and requiring that landlords itemize any deductions.

When their security deposit is wrongfully withheld, New Yorkers can look to the Small Claims Courts to recover their money. Unfortunately, historically the jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court laws was interpreted to require tenants to file their claims where the landlord lived – not where the property was located. This is a huge inconvenience for consumers. As a result, more often than not, it means the claims won’t get brought.

In 2021, the Legislature amended the four civil court acts to make it easier for tenants or former tenants to use the Small Claims Courts to get security deposits and other monies owed to them by landlords.

Unfortunately, there are two problems with the 2021 law:

• First, the law treated the downstate courts (covering New York City and most of Nassau and Suffolk Counties) differently than the courts serving town, village and city courts outside of those areas. This created the anomaly where downstate courts permit a claim against a former landlord in the court serving where the rental property is located, but in the Small Claims Courts in town and village and city courts outside those downstate areas landlords may only be sued in a Small Claims Court in the county where the landlord was located or an adjoining county.

• Second, is that court personnel don’t appear to have been provided with information and training on the 2021 Small Claims Court law. A recent review of public materials and survey of some civil court personnel across the state indicates that staff may be turning away New Yorkers who would like to use the new law to hold their landlords accountable in their local Small Claims Court.

These are not academic or trivial issues: New York City-based landlords have purchased a lot of upstate rental housing properties and far too often maintain those properties in deplorable, unsafe condition and take advantage of their low-income tenants, including by wrongfully withholding security deposits when tenants leave.

The upshot is that under current law renters in the cities, towns and villages from Westchester to Western New York – and all areas in between – cannot use their local Small Claims Court to hold landlords who are located outside their immediate area accountable for unlawfully failing to return security deposits or for other claims. That leaves those tenants and former tenants in most parts of the state without a good option when landlords have cheated them out of their security deposits, for example.

This past session, the state Senate approved legislation that would correct the problem by establishing equal protections for all tenant-consumers and ensuring that Small Claims Court personnel get the information and training they need to implement the law.

Unfortunately, like hundreds of other bills, the legislation was not brought to the Assembly floor for a vote. Since that decision was made in secret, it’s unclear why the Assembly punted.

Hopefully, next year brings some relief to tenants seeking justice to hold their landlords accountable. In the meantime, landlords continue to have the upper hand.