What You'll Learn From This Post
- There are two different fourteen-day papers, and the first question is which one you're holding
- A marshal's notice means fourteen days, not seventy-two hours. That changed in 2019
- Fourteen is a floor, not a date. Evictions happen on business days, in business hours
- The two real moves: an order to show cause, and in a nonpayment case, paying the full rent to the court first
- A bill in Albany would cut it to seven. It hasn't passed
I'm at Pine Box Rock Shop on Grattan Street, the vegan bar in Bushwick with the karaoke room in the back, three names down the list with a pickle margarita, rehearsing a Pixies song I have no business attempting in public. This is the one room in Brooklyn where I don't get to interrupt anybody.
Then the woman next to me, who is wearing a Bikini Kill shirt, the riot grrrl band, older than the bartender and has the voice of somebody who has told a landlord no before, says to her friend, "her roommate found a paper taped to the door and she's got seventy-two hours."
The friend has the posture of someone about to be asked for a couch.
And I'm interrupting. My body does the thing. Lawyer Mode. I don't pick when.
"Two questions. Is it from a marshal or from her landlord? And whoever said seventy-two hours is full of shit. It's fourteen days."
Bikini Kill blinks at me the way people do when a stranger with a pickle margarita starts practicing law at them. Fair.
⚖️ Yellow Alert or Red Alert: Which Paper Is This?
New York has two different fourteen-day notices and almost nobody separates them. On the Enterprise, yellow alert is the captain saying shields up while everyone keeps eating. Red alert is when the lights change and the chairs swivel. One of these papers is yellow and one is red, and you don't pick which.
| Rent demand (yellow alert) | Marshal's notice (red alert) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sent it | Your landlord | A city marshal, name and badge number printed on it |
| What it says | Pay within fourteen days or give up the apartment | NOTICE OF EVICTION, 14 DAYS, with an index number and a marshal's docket number |
| Where you are | No case filed yet | The case is over. Judgment and warrant issued |
| What it means | Shields up. Nobody's fired yet | The countdown is running |
Yellow is the far more common paper. If that's yours, the fourteen days are for paying or getting ready to answer a case that hasn't started.
Red is this article. If there's a marshal's name on it, don't put it down.
⏱️ The Countdown Got Changed and Half the Crew Is Running the Old Number
Before 2019 a marshal had to give seventy-two hours. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act changed that to at least fourteen days, and those fourteen days are the window for every move below. Seventy-two hours is still what people say, the way people still think the Enterprise self-destruct, the countdown a captain starts and stops by voice, takes exactly as long as the episode needs it to.
Where do they get it? A cousin. The landlord's text, not a neutral source. A Reddit thread from 2011. A movie that turned out to be set in New Jersey. A cousin who is also the landlord.
Now the part the fourteen doesn't tell you. The statute says at least fourteen. The notice itself says you may be evicted on the following business day or any business day after. So fourteen is a floor, not an appointment. Day fourteen isn't a safe day and day fifteen isn't a scheduled one. Past the floor: the marshal picks a business day, arrives with the warrant, and no second notice is coming. The court's own rules name two exceptions. If thirty days pass from the earliest eviction date on the notice and the warrant still hasn't been executed, a fresh notice has to be served, carrying another fourteen days. And if a court stays your eviction and that stay is later lifted or expires, you normally get a new notice too, unless the court specifically said otherwise, in which case the marshal has three business days to execute. That second one is the one to know if you win a stay and then lose it.
The statute and the practice don't quite match on hours. RPAPL 749 says the warrant is executed on a business day between sunrise and sunset. The Housing Court says marshals evict between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, legal holidays excluded. Plan around the narrower one. The marshal also has to check for a companion animal first and arrange its care. Yes, that's in the statute. The marshal has to think about your cat. The marshal does not have to think about your sourdough starter, which somebody once asked me.
🛑 The Abort Code Is an Order to Show Cause
On the show, the abort takes the captain's voice and a code. Here it takes a judge's signature, and it's called an order to show cause: you asking the court, in writing, to stop the eviction until a judge hears you. It's the only thing the notice says can stop it. Here's the actual procedure, as of today, from the Housing Court's own instructions:
| Step | What happens | Your move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The marshal's number is on the notice | Call it and ask whether the eviction is scheduled. Information, not surrender |
| 2 | Housing Court in your borough | Bring the notice, every paper the landlord sent, and your rent receipts |
| 3 | You fill out an affidavit saying why you shouldn't be evicted | If this notice is the first you've heard of any case, use the one to vacate a default judgment. "I never got the papers" is exactly what it's for |
| 4 | The clerk sends it to the judge. You may wait | Sign and stop the eviction until the hearing, sign and not stop it, sign with conditions like proof you can pay, or decline. Nobody honest will tell you which |
| 5 | If it's signed, you're not done | You serve it on the landlord and on the marshal, the way the order says. Miss the marshal and you can be evicted with a signed order in your hand |
You Won Your Housing Court Case. Now What? covers what happens after a judgment, whether you won or didn't.
💰 The Move the Notice Itself Tells You About
Read the notice again. It says the eviction can be stopped by a court order that either stays it or vacates a warrant for the non-payment of rent after a deposit or payment with the Court of the full rent due.
That second one is a statute, not a favor. Kirk, the original captain, never once paid the Klingons to stand down, but Kirk didn't have RPAPL 749(3). In a nonpayment case, if you tender or deposit the full rent due with the court at any time before the warrant is executed, the court has to vacate the warrant, unless the landlord proves you withheld the rent in bad faith. Four things have to be true:
It's a nonpayment case. Not a holdover.
The money goes to the court. Cash to the marshal at the door does nothing. Money the landlord pockets and never reports does nothing.
It's the full rent due. Confirm the number with the court, not with the landlord.
Use and occupancy on top of it. Courts read "full rent due" as the arrears from before the warrant issued, and in practice they also want proof you've kept paying for the months since. That's called use and occupancy, and nobody at the window will bring it up. Ask by name. Deposit exactly the arrears and nothing else and you can be right on the statute and still lose.
If you could have saved the apartment this way and somebody told you paying was pointless, that person cost you your home. I'd rather you hear it from me at a vegan bar.
🚫 If There Was No Marshal, It Wasn't an Eviction
Now you know what a lawful eviction looks like: a marshal, a warrant, fourteen days in writing, a business day, daylight. So you know the unlawful one too. A landlord who changes your locks with no marshal and no warrant isn't evicting you. He's committing a crime. Different emergency, different page: illegal lockouts.
📅 The Bill That Would Cut It to Seven
Assembly bill A9393 and Senate twin S7046 would cut both fourteen-day notices to seven. As of this writing they're in committee, and the idea has come up every session since 2019 without passing. I'll update this line if that changes. Until then, fourteen.
Back at Pine Box, they call my name. Bikini Kill has already texted the roommate "marshal or landlord?" which means she was listening, which is more than I can say for anyone about to hear me do "Where Is My Mind?" If you're the friend, this short quiz will tell you what kind of problem you've got. If you're the roommate, you're past the quiz. Fill out the landlord tenant questionnaire on my intake page and email me the notice tonight. I aim to get back to you within two business days, and on a marshal's notice I read them first.
A marshal's notice is time-sensitive and the facts of your case control. If you're holding one, talk to a lawyer or go to Housing Court now, not after reading the rest of my blog.
This is general legal information, not legal advice for your specific situation.
