New York Consolidated Laws, Real Property Tax Law - RPT § 1180. Despoliation of lands subject to delinquent tax liens

1. Neither the owner, occupant nor any other person shall have the right to despoil any lands subject to a delinquent tax lien by removing buildings or mobile homes, other than separately assessed mobile homes, or by cutting, removing or destroying timber or other valuable products, growing, existing or being thereon at the time of the filing of the list of delinquent taxes pursuant to section eleven hundred twenty-two of this article.

2. The tax district shall not enter upon or exercise acts of ownership on such land, until the expiration of the redemption period.  The tax district may at any time before obtaining title, cause to be served a notice on any person despoiling such lands or interested in making such despoliation, either personally or by leaving the same at the residence of such person, or with any member of his or her family of suitable age and discretion.  The notice shall describe the lands subject to the delinquent tax lien, shall state that such lands are subject to a delinquent tax lien and that an action or proceeding to recover the value of the buildings, timber or other products destroyed or removed therefrom after the date of filing will be instituted against all persons concerned in such despoliation.

3. If such lands are not redeemed, every person despoiling such lands or interested in making such despoliation upon whom service of the notice has been made, shall be liable to pay to the tax district the full value of any buildings, timber or other products cut or destroyed or removed therefrom, from the date of the filing of the list of delinquent taxes to the termination of such action or proceeding, and may be restrained by injunction from committing any waste thereon.