New York Algorithmic Rent-Setting Ban 2026: What Chapter 437 Prohibits and the Partial Court Block

Chapter 437 bars operating, licensing, or otherwise providing software, a service, or a device with a coordinating function to residential property owners or managers, and separately bars an owner or manager from setting rent based on that tool's recommendations.

[Cite: Chapter 437 of the Laws of 2025]

That's a 2-sided prohibition: it reaches the company selling the pricing tool and the landlord using its output, not just one side of the transaction.

A tool crosses into coordinating-function territory when it does 3 things together: collects rent, supply, or lease data from 2 or more unaffiliated property owners or managers, analyzes that data using a computational process, and generates a recommendation on rental prices, lease terms, or occupancy targets.

[Cite: Chapter 437 of the Laws of 2025]

A landlord using software that only tracks their own portfolio's internal rent history, without pulling in data from unaffiliated competitors, isn't using a coordinating-function tool under this definition; the cross-owner data pooling is what triggers the ban.

The bill was signed into law on October 16, 2025, and set its own effective date at 60 days after becoming law, putting the compliance deadline at December 15, 2025.

[Cite: Chapter 437 of the Laws of 2025]

A landlord or vendor who kept using a coordinating-function tool past that date was already out of compliance with the statute as written, regardless of what has happened in litigation since.

Chapter 437 operates within New York's Donnelly Act antitrust framework, giving the state Attorney General authority to bring civil and criminal enforcement actions, and giving private parties the ability to sue for treble damages.

[Cite: Chapter 437 of the Laws of 2025]

That private right of action is a meaningful exposure point separate from state enforcement; a tenant or competitor harmed by coordinated pricing could pursue a treble-damages claim even in a period when the Attorney General isn't actively enforcing the coordinating-function provision.

Judge Valerie Caproni of the Southern District of New York issued a preliminary injunction blocking New York from enforcing the law's coordinating-function provision against RealPage while RealPage, Inc. v. James proceeds.

[Cite: RealPage, Inc. v. James, No. 1:25-cv-09847 (S.D.N.Y., Sept. 30, 2026)]

A preliminary injunction is a temporary court order, not a final ruling on the merits; it pauses enforcement of a specific provision against a specific party while the underlying lawsuit is litigated, rather than permanently invalidating the statute.

Judge Caproni found RealPage had shown a sufficient likelihood of success on its claim that the coordinating-function ban restricts truthful commercial speech protected by the First Amendment, writing that the statute "prohibits normal commercial conduct just because it is facilitated by software" and describing the underlying merits as "a close question."

[Cite: RealPage, Inc. v. James, No. 1:25-cv-09847 (S.D.N.Y., Sept. 30, 2026)]

That reasoning targets the law's core mechanism, treating data-driven pricing recommendations as a form of protected speech rather than as inherently anticompetitive conduct, which is the theory New York's Attorney General will have to defend as the case moves forward.

A preliminary injunction blocks enforcement; it doesn't repeal a statute or declare it unconstitutional as a final matter.

[Cite: RealPage, Inc. v. James, No. 1:25-cv-09847 (S.D.N.Y., Sept. 30, 2026)]

Chapter 437 remains on the books in its original form, and the litigation could still end with the law upheld, meaning a landlord or vendor treating this injunction as a permanent green light is reading more into a preliminary order than it currently provides.

The injunction was issued in a case brought by RealPage specifically, and its text addresses enforcement against RealPage; whether it protects every other vendor or every landlord using a similar coordinating-function tool is a question the order itself doesn't fully resolve.

[Cite: RealPage, Inc. v. James, No. 1:25-cv-09847 (S.D.N.Y., Sept. 30, 2026)]

A landlord using a different vendor's pricing software shouldn't assume this ruling automatically shields them from enforcement; the safer reading is that the state's enforcement authority against the coordinating-function provision generally is constrained while this litigation is active, but a vendor-specific or landlord-specific legal review is the only way to know for certain.

The injunction addresses the Attorney General's enforcement authority; it doesn't necessarily resolve whether a private plaintiff, such as a tenant alleging harm from coordinated rent-setting, could still bring a treble-damages claim under the statute's Donnelly Act framework.

[Cite: Chapter 437 of the Laws of 2025]

A landlord weighing whether to resume or continue using a coordinating-function tool during this injunction period is making that decision against incomplete legal cover, since a private lawsuit is a separate exposure the court order may not have closed off.

Software used specifically for government-regulated affordable housing programs, including administering rent stabilization or rent control, falls outside the coordinating-function ban entirely, independent of how the RealPage litigation resolves.

[Cite: Chapter 437 of the Laws of 2025]

A landlord or property manager using a tool solely to administer regulated affordable units doesn't need to track this litigation to know their use case was never covered by the ban in the first place.

The practical starting point is treating the coordinating-function ban as a statute that's currently unenforced against RealPage specifically, not as a law that's been struck down, and tracking the case's docket rather than assuming the current state is permanent.

For any landlord or vendor outside the RealPage litigation itself, getting a direct legal read on whether this injunction's protection extends to their specific tool and circumstances is worth doing before resuming or continuing coordinating-function pricing practices, given how narrowly the order's own reasoning is tied to RealPage's facts.