Articles, with questions

An Offer to Renew

a lease renewal notice, and what it means · reading 8

The People’s Share · GED Reasoning Through Language Arts · reading nonfiction

Part 1

Before you read

A letter from a landlord offering to renew the lease on a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City, followed by a short explanation of what the letter means and what happened after it was sent.

Kind of text
A sample document from daily life, written for The People’s Share, with an explanation after it. The names and address are made up. The rules in it are real, and so are the dates of the Rent Guidelines Board’s votes.
Length
About 700 words, in 12 paragraphs: 7 in the notice and 5 in the explanation. A reading passage on the test is 450 to 900 words.
Time
About 7 minutes to read, and 20 for the questions. Two of the questions ask you to do some arithmetic, so keep a pencil nearby.
What to expect
A notice with many dates and numbers in it, each with its own meaning. The explanation after it tells you how the rules work, and how a vote by a city board changed the choice.

Words you will meet

leaseparagraph 2
a written agreement to rent a home for a set length of time, at a set rent
renewparagraph 2
to make a new agreement that continues an old one for another period of time
rent-stabilizedparagraph 2
covered by laws that limit rent increases; paragraph 8 explains it
legal rentparagraph 2
the highest rent the owner is allowed by law to charge for the apartment
orderparagraph 3
here, an official decision of a board; each year’s decision has a number
percentparagraph 4
a part out of 100; 3 percent of $1,600 is $48
evictparagraph 5
to force a tenant out of a home through the courts
terms and conditionsparagraph 6
the rules of the lease: what the tenant and the owner each agree to do
riderparagraph 6
an extra document attached to a contract, which becomes part of it
frozeparagraph 12
kept the same, with no increase; a rent freeze means the rent does not go up

The notice

An Offer to Renew

A sample renewal notice, and what it means

Sample notice, for practice only. The names and address are made up. This is not the official state form.

Offer to Renew Your Lease
Rent-stabilized apartment · New York City

1Date: May 1, 2026 (delivered by hand)
From: Kestrel Realty Company, owner of the building
To: Ana Morales, tenant
Apartment: 2214 Marlow Avenue, Apartment 4B, Bronx, New York

2Dear Ms. Morales: Your lease for this apartment ends on August 31, 2026. Your apartment is rent-stabilized, and under the rent stabilization law you have the right to renew your lease. This letter is our offer of a renewal lease. Your current legal rent is $1,600.00 a month.

3You may choose a lease of one year or of two years. The increases below are the largest the law allows. They were set by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board in its Order No. 57, for leases that begin on or after October 1, 2025, and on or before September 30, 2026. Your new lease would begin on September 1, 2026.

4Choice 1: a one-year lease, from September 1, 2026, to August 31, 2027. Increase: 3 percent, or $48.00. New rent: $1,648.00 a month.
Choice 2: a two-year lease, from September 1, 2026, to August 31, 2028. Increase: 4.5 percent, or $72.00. New rent: $1,672.00 a month.

5How to answer. Check one choice below, sign this notice and the lease that comes with it, and return them to the building office by June 30, 2026. That is 60 days from the day this notice was delivered to you. If you do not answer within 60 days, the owner may refuse to renew your lease and may go to court to evict you after your lease ends.

6Your renewal lease keeps the same terms and conditions as your current lease, except where a change is required by law. A copy of the New York City Lease Rider for Rent Stabilized Tenants, which explains your rights and the owner’s duties, is attached. After you return the signed lease, we will give you a copy signed by both of us within 30 days.

7Tenant’s choice (check one):  ☐ one-year lease   ☐ two-year lease
Tenant’s signature:  Date:

What this notice means

8A rent-stabilized apartment is one covered by a set of New York laws that limit how much the rent can go up and give the tenant the right to renew the lease. In New York City, about one million apartments are rent-stabilized, out of about 3.7 million homes. Most apartments in the city are not rent-stabilized, and different rules apply to them.

9The law sets the timing. The owner must offer the renewal in writing, by mail or by hand, between 90 and 150 days before the lease ends. Ms. Morales’s lease ends August 31, and May 1 is 122 days earlier, so the offer came on time. She then has 60 days to choose a lease, sign it, and return it. In real life, owners in New York City must make this offer on an official state form, called the RTP-8. The notice above is a sample, written to show what such an offer says.

10The owner does not choose the increase. Each year, the Rent Guidelines Board, a city board, votes on the largest increases allowed for one-year and two-year leases. Each of its orders covers leases that begin from October 1 of one year through September 30 of the next. Because Ms. Morales’s new lease begins September 1, 2026, it falls under Order No. 57, which the Board passed on June 30, 2025.

11Each choice has an advantage. The one-year lease costs $24 less each month. The two-year lease locks the rent for two years: it cannot go up again until September 2028. A tenant who takes the one-year lease will get a new offer the next year, at whatever increase the Board allows then. On May 1, 2026, no one knew what that would be.

12On June 25, 2026, the Board voted again. In Order No. 58, for leases that begin on or after October 1, 2026, and on or before September 30, 2027, it allowed no increase at all, for one-year leases or for two-year leases. It was the first time in the Board’s history that it froze the rent on two-year leases. If Ms. Morales took the one-year lease, it would end August 31, 2027, and her next lease would begin September 1, 2027. That date falls under Order No. 58.

Part 2

Questions like the test’s

Eight questions, in the kinds the test uses. Press Check after each one. If you miss, the page tells you why the answer you chose is tempting, and you can try again.

1. According to the notice, by what date must Ms. Morales return the signed lease?

2. Paragraph 4 says the two-year lease raises the rent by 4.5 percent, to $1,672.00. Which calculation shows how the new rent was found?

3. Choose the words that best complete the sentence. drop-down

According to paragraph 5, if Ms. Morales does not answer within 60 days, the owner may .

4. Suppose Ms. Morales took the one-year lease at $1,648 a month. Then, in 2027, she renewed for one more year under Order No. 58, with no increase. Over the two years from September 1, 2026, to August 31, 2028, how would her total rent compare with the total for the two-year lease at $1,672 a month?

5. Read this sentence from paragraph 11. What does the word locks mean here?

“The two-year lease locks the rent for two years: it cannot go up again until September 2028.”

6. Why does the notice name the Rent Guidelines Board and its Order No. 57 in paragraph 3?

7. Which two statements are supported by the notice and the explanation after it? choose two

8. Put these events in the order they happened, or would happen. Choose 1 for the first and 5 for the last. put in order

Ms. Morales’s time to answer the offer runs out.
The owner delivers the renewal offer to Ms. Morales.
Ms. Morales’s current lease ends.
The Rent Guidelines Board passes Order No. 57.
The Board votes for Order No. 58, with no increase.

Part 3

For talking it over

These have no single right answer. They are for class, or for thinking about on your own.

  1. If you had been Ms. Morales on May 1, 2026, which lease would you have chosen, and why? What would you want to know before you decided?
    A place to start

    Think about how long you plan to stay, and whether $24 a month makes a difference to your budget now.

  2. The Board voted for a freeze on June 25, five days before Ms. Morales’s deadline. A tenant who decided on May 1 could not have known about it. What are the reasons to answer a notice like this one early, and what are the reasons to use the time the law allows?
  3. A rent freeze helps tenants pay the rent. Owners say their own costs, such as heat, taxes and repairs, still go up. Who do you think the Board should listen to most, and why?
    A place to start

    Think about a tenant, the owner of a small building, and the owner of many buildings. Are their needs the same?

Part 4

Write about it

Choose one of these and write in the box below. Put the number of the one you chose at the top. The box saves your writing as you go, under your code, and you can send it to Myles when it is ready.

  1. 1. Explain it

    A friend has received a notice like this one and asks you what it means. Write a short note to your friend that explains the two choices, the deadline, and what happens if no one answers.

    Use your own words, and give at least three facts from the notice. Put the most important fact first: the date to answer by.

  2. 2. Weigh it

    Suppose it is May 1, 2026, and all you know is what the notice says. Which lease would you choose? Give your reasons.

    Use numbers from the notice: the two rents, and the difference between them. Then answer the strongest reason someone might give for the other choice.

Where the facts come from

The notice on this page is a sample written for The People’s Share. Ms. Morales, Kestrel Realty Company and the address are made up, and the notice is not a copy of the state’s official form. The rules in it were checked against: the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal, Fact Sheet #4, “Lease Renewal in Rent Stabilized Apartments”; the New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s page of questions and answers on leases; the Board’s Apartment and Loft Order #57 (passed June 30, 2025) and Order #58 (passed June 25, 2026), as printed in the City Record; the Mayor’s Office statement and amNY on the vote of June 25, 2026; and the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s testimony on the 2023 Housing and Vacancy Survey, for the number of homes and of rent-stabilized apartments. If you get a notice like this one, the rules may have changed since this page was written. For help, you can call the state’s housing agency, or a tenant group or legal services office near you.

☞ The skills in these questions are taught one at a time in the quizzes: Quiz 5, citing evidence; Quiz 6, how ideas relate; Quiz 7, words in context; Quiz 10, structure. Back to all the articles.

Answers

1 D · 2 B · 3 refuse to renew her lease · 4 C · 5 B · 6 C · 7 A and E · 8 (top to bottom) 4, 2, 5, 1, 3