Lease Takeover in NYC: Your Rights, the Cost, and How to Find One

This is general information about New York housing law as of November 2026, not legal advice. Co-ops, condos, and rent-regulated apartments follow different rules. Read your lease, and talk with a lawyer if you are about to sign away a regulated apartment or take one over. The wider legal background is in subletting laws and regulations in New York.

A lease takeover is what people call it when someone else steps into your lease and you step out. Lawyers usually call that an assignment. Sometimes the landlord skips the assignment and writes the new person a fresh lease, then releases you. Either way, the point is the same: your name comes off the hook.

That is rarer than a sublet, and it should be. On Ohana, 5,772 New York bookings are sublets. Lease takeovers are 278 bookings, for 270 people. Platform-wide, takeovers are 382 booked stays. Sublets outnumber them about 21 to 1 in this city, because a landlord will often accept a subtenant and almost always hesitate to release the person who signed the original lease.

When a takeover is the right tool, it is the cleanest way off a lease. When it is the wrong tool, people use the word anyway and discover they are still liable. Here is the difference, what it costs, and how to find one without getting stuck.

Takeover, sublet, or break

Three different legal objects get mashed into one sentence in group chats.

• Sublet. You stay on the lease. Someone else lives there for a slice of the term and pays you, or pays through a booking. You are still responsible if they do not pay or if they damage the place. In a building with four or more apartments, Real Property Law 226-b says the landlord's consent cannot be unreasonably withheld.
• Assignment, which is the legal name for most takeovers. You transfer the rest of the lease to someone else. You need written consent. The landlord may refuse an assignment for any reason. If the refusal is unreasonable, your remedy is not "I assign it anyway." Your remedy is a release: on your request, the landlord has to let you out on 30 days' notice. If the refusal is reasonable, you stay on the lease and there is no assignment.
• A break. You leave and hope the remaining rent gets covered by a buyout or by the landlord re-renting under Real Property Law 227-e. You do not pick the next tenant. We go through the cost of that path in how to break your lease in NYC.

The full comparison, including which one to pick, is in sublet vs. lease assignment vs. lease break.

Is a takeover legal?

Yes, with the landlord's written consent. There is no right to force an assignment through over a refusal. There is a right, if you are renting a residence, to be released when the landlord's refusal is unreasonable. That release is "the sole remedy" in the statute. People miss that sentence and then try to hand over the keys anyway. The landlord can still come after the original tenant.

A takeover done properly ends with one of these, in writing:

• A signed assignment, plus the landlord's consent, plus a release of the outgoing tenant. Consent without a release is a sublet wearing a takeover's clothes. You are still liable.
• Or a new lease between the landlord and the incoming tenant, and a signed surrender or release for you, dated so the two do not overlap into double rent or a gap.

If all you have is a text that says "sure, they can take it," you do not have a takeover.

What it costs

There is no filing fee and no statutory price. The money is whatever the three of you agree:

• Rent. The incoming tenant usually pays the lease rent, not a marked-up number. On a market-rate lease that can be a bargain against a new listing, or not, depending on when you signed. On Ohana, as of November 1, 2026, entire homes in New York with upcoming availability have a median guest price of $3,959 a month, across 917 listings. Rooms sit at $1,883, across 2,924. These figures are refreshed every day. A takeover priced far under the lease, with pressure to wire a "holding fee" tonight, is a scam pattern, not a deal. See how to spot a sublet scam.
• A landlord fee. Some owners charge an application or a credit-check fee. State law caps what a landlord can charge an applicant for a background or credit check. Do not pay an invented "assignment tax" in cash before you have seen the consent form.
• The outgoing tenant's remaining obligation. Until the release is signed, they owe the rent. A gap between their move-out and the new lease starting is still their month.
• The deposit. It should move in writing: returned to the outgoing tenant, or transferred and re-documented in the new person's name. A handshake transfer of a deposit is how both sides lose it.

Compared with a buyout of one or two months, a takeover that the landlord accepts is usually the cheaper exit, because the rent never stops and you are released rather than billed for the gap.

If you are the one handing the lease off

You want three things in the file: consent, a release, and a clear last day. Ask for them before you move out, not after.

The landlord can refuse. A reasonable refusal looks like a proposed tenant who cannot show income, a use that breaks the lease, or overcrowding. An unreasonable refusal looks like a blanket "we never assign," or a refusal that arrives with no reason when the proposed tenant is qualified. Unreasonable refusal triggers your right to request a release on 30 days' notice. Put that request in writing and keep the certified-mail receipt. It is the same discipline as a sublet notice, described in how to ask your landlord for permission.

You can also offer a sublet as the fallback in the same conversation. Landlords who will not release you will often allow a subtenant, because you remain liable. That is why our New York bookings look the way they do.

If you are the one taking the lease over

You are about to become the tenant, with whatever time is left and whatever rent the lease already sets. Before you sign:

• Read the existing lease, not a summary in a message. Check the end date, the rent, who pays utilities, and whether subletting or pets are restricted later.
• Confirm the person offering it is the tenant. The name on the lease should match their ID.
• See the apartment in person or on a live video walk-through. Prerecorded tours get recycled by people who do not have the keys.
• Get the landlord's consent in the same packet as your signature. A takeover the owner has not approved is just an unauthorized occupant, and you can be removed.
• Know whether the apartment is rent-stabilized. Taking over a stabilized lease is not a casual favor. The tenant generally has to be leaving in a way the law allows, and you should assume Homes and Community Renewal, not the outgoing tenant, is the authority on the legal rent. A stabilized "takeover" priced at a discount and offered with no board or owner paperwork is a classic way to inherit someone else's violation.

Co-op apartments are outside Real Property Law 226-b. The board and the proprietary lease decide. A shareholder who tells you the board "won't care" is guessing with your housing.

How to do it, in order

1. Decide you want off the lease entirely, not just out of the apartment for the summer. If you are coming back, you want a sublet, and you want to keep your name on the lease.
2. Read the assignment clause. Some leases set a procedure. Follow it.
3. Find a proposed tenant who can pass a normal application: income, references, timing that matches the remaining term.
4. Ask the landlord in writing for consent to assign, and attach the proposed tenant's information. Keep a copy.
5. If they consent, do not move out until the release is signed and the start date is unambiguous.
6. If they refuse without a good reason, request the 30-day release in writing. Keep paying until that release is effective.
7. If they refuse with a good reason, stop. You are still the tenant. Switch to a sublet, or negotiate a break.

On Ohana, a listing can be offered as a lease takeover rather than a sublet, so the person responding knows they are being asked to take the remaining term, not a six-week stay. Say that in the first line. People shopping for August housing will not take a lease that runs through next March, and people who want a lease will not trust a listing that hides the end date.

What takeovers look like in our bookings

The 278 New York lease takeovers that have been booked are a different shape from the 5,772 sublets. Sublets have a median length of 69 nights and an average of 77, a tight summer-shaped cluster. Takeovers are skewed. The median is 30 nights, and the average is 102 nights, because a smaller number of longer remainders pull the average up. Read that as a warning against folklore. A "takeover" on a listing is not automatically the rest of a twelve-month lease. Ask for the end date.

A composite, built from that pattern and rounded so it is not any one household: someone eight months into a market-rate lease gets a job in another city. They do not want a subtenant, because they are not coming back, and a sublet would leave them liable from across the country. They send the landlord a proposed assignee who can start on the first. The landlord would rather keep the original name on the lease and asks them to sublet instead. They reply, in writing, that they are requesting an assignment, and that if consent is withheld unreasonably they will request the statutory release. The landlord consents and signs a release effective the day the new lease starts. The outgoing tenant's deposit is returned on the 14-day clock in General Obligations Law 7-108, not folded quietly into the new tenancy.

The other version, just as common in spirit: the landlord says no for a reason that holds up, the tenant sublets the remaining months, and stays legally responsible. That is a success too. It is just not a takeover. Pretending that it is, in the listing title, is how the next person moves in thinking they have a lease with the owner when they have a subtenancy with you.

People who have actually finished a stay on Ohana talk about the paperwork feeling ordinary, which is what you are aiming for. One 5-out-of-5 review: "Had a great stay. The host was very welcoming, responsive, and easy to communicate with throughout my stay. The apartment was clean and exactly as described." Of 1,578 reviews from people who booked and stayed, the average is 4.8 out of 5, and 1,398 of them are a perfect 5.

When a takeover is the wrong call

• You are coming back. Sublet. Keep the primary residence, especially if the apartment is regulated.
• You are a co-op shareholder and the board has not approved a sale or a sublet. Do not install a stranger and call it an assignment.
• The incoming person cannot qualify. Forcing a weak assignee is how you get a reasonable refusal and no release.
• Someone wants you to pay them to "take over your lease" by wire, before the landlord is involved. That is not a takeover. That is the scam guide.

Questions people ask

Is a lease takeover the same as an assignment?

In New York, yes, unless the landlord is writing a brand-new lease and releasing you. Both require the owner. Neither happens by group chat.

Can my landlord refuse?

Yes. For an assignment they can refuse even without a strong reason, but an unreasonable refusal entitles you to a release on 30 days' notice. For a sublet, in a building with four or more units, they cannot unreasonably withhold consent, and silence after a proper notice can count as consent.

Does this hurt my credit?

A completed release does not. Rent you stop paying before the release is effective can, if it goes to collections or to court.

How do I find someone to take it?

List the remaining term honestly, with the real end date and the real rent. The New York City sublets page is where people are already looking. If the landlord will not release you, change the offer to a sublet rather than leaving a takeover listing up. The five-step sublet guide is the fallback.