Most New York compliance failures cost money. This one costs money and takes away a remedy, which is what makes it worth a page of its own.

The Real Property Income and Expense statement is an annual filing with the Department of Finance, due 1 June. Owners tend to treat it as an administrative form. It is the gate on your ability to argue about your own tax assessment.

Who has to file

Owners of income-producing property with an actual assessed value of more than $40,000 on the tentative assessment roll must file an RPIE statement, or a claim of exclusion where the property qualifies.

Note what the threshold is measured in: assessed value, not market value. That distinction catches owners out, because $40,000 sounds like a number that could not possibly apply to their building. In practice it reaches a great many ordinary Brooklyn rental properties.

If you own income-producing property in the city and have not established that you are outside the requirement, assume you are inside it.

The deadline and the penalty

1 June, covering the prior calendar year. The RPIE-2025 statement was due 1 June 2026.

The penalty for failing to file is up to 5% of the property's actual assessed value.

For a filing that takes an afternoon when the books are in order, that is a wildly disproportionate cost — and it is still the lesser of the two consequences.

The consequence owners find out about later

The Tax Commission can, by law, deny a hearing to any property that did not file its RPIE by the deadline.

Read that alongside how NYC assessments actually work. Class 2 property — residential with more than three units — is generally assessed using an income approach, flowing substantially from the building's reported income and expenses. Challenging that assessment is a real and frequently worthwhile exercise, covered in appealing your NYC property tax assessment.

But an owner who did not file the RPIE has, in effect, forfeited the remedy before the argument begins. They may be right that the building is over-assessed. They will not get the hearing at which to say so.

That is the reason this obligation deserves a place on the calendar well above its apparent size.

Confirm current thresholds, deadlines, penalty amounts and Tax Commission practice with the Department of Finance. These change.

Do not use non-filing as a way of saying it does not apply

Where a property genuinely falls outside the requirement, there is a claim of exclusion — and filing that is how you establish the position.

Silence is not a claim. An owner who simply does not file because they believe the requirement does not reach them has no record of that belief and no protection if the Department disagrees.

If you think your property is excluded, confirm with the Department of Finance what you should be submitting, and submit it.

Why this rewards good bookkeeping

The RPIE asks for the prior year's income and expenses in the categories the Department specifies.

For a building with current monthly records that is a straightforward extraction. For a building whose books are assembled once a year from a shoebox, it is a bad week — and it is one of several places where the cost of poor record-keeping arrives all at once. The same records serve the annual financial statement, the budget, an assessment challenge, and a lender's questionnaire. Maintaining them properly is what financial reporting is for.

Check the storefront filing too

Storefront Registry filings run on the same timetable, and they apply to properties with ground-floor or second-floor commercial space.

If you own a mixed-use building, that is a second obligation on the same date, and completing the RPIE does not discharge it. Confirm both with the Department of Finance rather than assuming one covers the other.

Put it on the June calendar

  • 1 June — RPIE statement, or claim of exclusion.
  • 1 June — Storefront Registry filing, where applicable.
  • Keep the confirmation. A filing you cannot evidence is a filing you may have to make twice.
  • Check the assessed value on the tentative roll each year, so you know whether the threshold has been crossed.

That last point matters for owners at the margin. Assessed values move, and a building outside the requirement one year can be inside it the next without anyone announcing the change.

Where a managing agent carries this

Keeping the books in a state where an RPIE is an extraction rather than a project, filing by the deadline, retaining the confirmation, watching the assessed value against the threshold, and making sure the storefront filing is not overlooked in a mixed-use building is part of apartment building management and the legal and regulatory compliance calendar.

If you own income-producing property in New York City and cannot confirm this year's RPIE was filed, schedule a consultation or call 718-568-9278 — and check before you need the Tax Commission, not after.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Thresholds, deadlines, penalties and exclusion criteria change. Confirm your property's obligations with the NYC Department of Finance and your own advisors.