Homestead Exemption Amounts in New York

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Governing law

The exemption is entirely statutory: N.Y. Civil Practice Law and Rules § 5206.

Exemption amount

Three tiers, all keyed to the county where the property sits: $204,825 for Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, Richmond, Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties; $170,700 for Dutchess, Albany, Columbia, Orange, Saratoga, and Ulster counties; and $102,400 for every other county in the state (§ 5206(a), as adjusted). These amounts took effect April 1, 2024, and by statute adjust again every three years based on the Consumer Price Index, the next scheduled adjustment is April 1, 2027. The New York Department of Financial Services, not the courts, publishes the current adjusted figures. A pending bill (see below) would replace this county-tiered structure with a flat statewide amount and a separate NYC-metro tier, and change how future adjustments are calculated.

Size or acreage limit

None. New York's exemption is purely a dollar-value cap, not an acreage limit. It covers a house lot with a dwelling, shares in a cooperative apartment corporation, a condominium unit, or a mobile home (§ 5206(a)).

Automatic, or do you have to file something?

Automatic. Nothing in § 5206 requires recording a declaration or filing any document for the exemption to apply.

Who qualifies, and can spouses double it?

The exemption protects the owner-occupant of the property as a principal residence. It survives the owner's death for the benefit of a surviving spouse and surviving children until the youngest child reaches majority and the spouse dies (§ 5206(b)), and it ends if the property stops being occupied as a residence, unless the vacancy is a year or less and caused by injury to or destruction of the dwelling (§ 5206(c)). The statute itself states one dollar figure per homestead, with no language doubling it for a married couple. A commonly repeated claim that New York "lets married couples double" the exemption describes a bankruptcy-specific outcome, each joint filer separately claiming New York's exemption under federal bankruptcy law, rather than anything CPLR § 5206 itself provides for an ordinary civil judgment. A pending bill would instead limit each nonsolo bankruptcy owner to the exemption share matching that owner's fractional equity interest.

What it actually protects you from

The exemption shields equity up to the applicable dollar amount from "application to the satisfaction of a money judgment." It does not shrink the judgment lien itself, § 5206(d) states plainly that "the lien of a judgment attaches to the surplus" above the exemption amount. If a homestead is worth more than the exemption, § 5206(e) lets the judgment creditor start a special court proceeding to force a sale, with the proceeds divided according to each party's actual interest.

Debts that can still reach your home

The statute's own text carves out two situations directly: the exemption never applies to a judgment "recovered wholly for the purchase price" of the property (i.e., the debt that bought the home), and an exempt homestead is never shielded "from taxation or from sale for non-payment of taxes or assessments" (§ 5206(a)). A mortgage or home-equity lender's foreclosure isn't a "money judgment" in the first place, so § 5206 doesn't need to separately exclude it, the exemption only ever applied to the satisfaction of a money judgment to begin with.

Protection for sale proceeds

Longer than the six-month window several other states use: proceeds up to the exemption amount stay exempt from a creditor's claim for a full year after they're paid to the judgment debtor. If the debtor buys a new exempt homestead before that year runs out, the leftover exemption carries over, and the newly acquired property is protected "against every debt" the sold property was exempt from (§ 5206(e)).

What trips people up

The dollar figures are NOT set directly by the Legislature amending the statute each time, they're calculated every three years by the Department of Financial Services under a CPI formula written into the CPLR, so a secondary source's number can go stale the moment a new three-year cycle takes effect. Always check the DFS's own current notice rather than an older article. Also, don't assume the "doubling for married couples" claim found on many bankruptcy-attorney websites describes New York's civil-judgment exemption directly, it's a federal-bankruptcy-context result, not a state civil-judgment rule. A pending bill would limit a nonsolo owner's bankruptcy exemption to that owner's fractional equity share.

Common questions

Do I need to file anything to get this protection in New York? No, it's automatic.

Can a creditor force the sale of my house if my equity is above the exemption? Yes, § 5206(e) specifically lets a judgment creditor bring a court proceeding to force a sale of a homestead worth more than the exemption amount, with the surplus going to satisfy the judgment.

Does the exemption protect me from my mortgage lender? No. The exemption only applies to an ordinary money judgment; it doesn't affect a mortgage or home-equity lender's own foreclosure rights.

Statutes and sources

• N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 5206, https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/cvp/article-52/5206/ (accessed 2026-07-09)
• N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 5206 (cross-check mirror), https://codes.findlaw.com/ny/civil-practice-law-and-rules/cvp-sect-5206/ (accessed 2026-07-09)
• NY Department of Financial Services, current exemption amounts, https://www.dfs.ny.gov/industry_guidance/exemption_from_judgments (accessed 2026-07-09)
• NY A 7940 / S 8109 (pending), https://www2.nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=A07940&term=&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Votes=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y and https://www2.nyassembly.gov/leg/?bn=S08109&term=&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Votes=Y&Memo=Y&Text=Y (checked 2026-09-19)