New York co-op & condo law, in plain English

On this page: Does this apply to you? · Co-op owners · Condo owners · HOA owners · Board members · Buying · NYC buildings: Local Law 97 and facades · Co-op or condo at a glance · Who to ask · What changes next

Does this apply to you?

Start with what you actually own. Your stock certificate, deed or offering plan will tell you.

Co-op owners

What you own

In a co-op you don't own real estate directly. You own shares in the corporation that owns the building, and those shares come with a proprietary lease for your apartment. Your rights come mainly from the Business Corporation Law and from that lease.

Records you can ask for

• What the co-op must keep. Accurate and complete books and records of account; minutes of shareholder, board and executive committee meetings; and a record of shareholders with names, addresses and shares held (BCL §624(a)).
• What you can inspect. The minutes of shareholder meetings and the record of shareholders, in person or through your agent or attorney, during usual business hours. You need to make a written demand at least five days ahead (BCL §624(b)). The co-op may first ask you for a short affidavit that you won't use the list for an outside purpose (BCL §624(c)).
• The yearly financial statements. Ask in writing and the co-op must give or mail you its annual balance sheet and profit and loss statement for the last fiscal year, plus the latest interim statement if one was sent to shareholders or made public (BCL §624(e)).
• If it refuses. You can apply to the Supreme Court in the judicial district where the co-op's office is (BCL §624(d)).

Flip tax

A co-op can charge a fee when shares change hands. The law allows it when the fee is set out in the proprietary leases, occupancy agreements, offering plan, or properly approved amendments to them, subject to other conditions in the section (BCL §501(c)). The statute doesn't set the amount and doesn't use the words "flip tax". Your documents set the fee.

Subletting

New York's sublet law (RPL §226-b) gives renters in buildings with four or more apartments a right to ask to sublet (§226-b(2)(a)). It does not cover co-op shareholders: §226-b(3) excludes a lease held because you own stock in the building's corporation. In a co-op, your right to sublet comes from your proprietary lease and house rules.

When a board turns a buyer down

• New York City. A co-op board does not have to give a buyer a reason for rejecting an application.
• Fair housing still applies. New York's Human Rights Law bars anyone with the right to sell or lease housing from discriminating because of race, creed, color, national origin, citizenship or immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, sex, age, disability, marital status, status as a victim of domestic violence, lawful source of income or familial status (Executive Law §296(5)(a)).
• Westchester County is different. A county law requires co-op boards to give the applicant a written reason for a rejection, include it in the rejection notice filed with the County Human Rights Commission, disclose minimum financial requirements before an application is filed, and have board members take fair housing training. It doesn't change the lawful reasons a board can reject.

Letters for this: asking for the financials, the underlying mortgage, a land lease, Local Law 97, and reporting a leak.

Condo owners

What your bylaws must cover

The Condominium Act lists what every condo's bylaws must include (RPL §339-v(1)):

• The board of managers. How it's elected and how many serve, with the terms of at least one-third ending each year; its powers, duties and any pay; how members can be removed; and whether it can hire a managing agent (§339-v(1)(a)).
• Owner meetings. How they're called, the quorum if it isn't a majority, and the votes needed for decisions (§339-v(1)(b)). The board can choose to hold owner meetings wholly or partly online, or let owners join online while it meets in person.
• Officers. A president, a secretary who keeps the minutes, and a treasurer who keeps the financial records (§339-v(1)(c) to (e)).
• Money and rules. Paying common expenses and setting and collecting common charges (§339-v(1)(f)); rules for the common elements (§339-v(1)(h)); and use restrictions (§339-v(1)(i)).
• Changing the bylaws. Needs at least 66⅔% of owners by number and common interest, except in condos where every unit is non-residential (§339-v(1)(j)).

Bylaws may also set rules on selling, leasing and occupying units, but never on the basis of race, creed, color or national origin (§339-v(2)(a)). They may provide for reserves for repairs, replacements and the like (§339-v(2)(b)).

Records

The board (or manager) must keep detailed, accurate records of money in and out, in date order, with the vouchers that authorized each payment. Owners can examine them at "convenient hours of weekdays". And every owner must get a written summary of receipts and expenditures at least once a year (RPL §339-w).

Common charges

You can't stop paying because you don't use the gym, the pool or the roof deck, or by walking away from the unit (RPL §339-x). The only release the Act gives is conveying the unit to the board on the bylaws' terms, and that only covers charges after the conveyance.

Unpaid charges: liens and foreclosure

• The lien. Unpaid common charges, plus interest, are a lien on the unit. It ranks ahead of every other lien except tax liens, the first mortgage of record, and some loans held by named state and city agencies (RPL §339-z).
• When it starts. Only once the board files a verified notice of lien where the declaration is recorded. It lasts until paid, or six years from filing, whichever comes first. If no notice has been filed within 60 days after a charge falls due, any board member may file one (RPL §339-aa).
• Before foreclosure. The board must give you at least 90 days' notice, in fourteen-point type, saying it intends to foreclose, with the address and the amount due (RPL §339-aa).
• Other routes. The board can sue for a money judgment without giving up the lien. If the bylaws say so, you owe reasonable rent for the unit before a foreclosure sale. Unless the bylaws forbid it, the board can buy the unit at the sale (RPL §339-aa).
• Once you've paid. You're entitled to a signed certificate showing payment (RPL §339-aa).

Selling

On a sale, unpaid common charges are paid from the price or by the buyer. Either side can ask the board or manager for a statement of what's unpaid. Neither seller nor buyer owes more for the time before the sale than that statement shows (RPL §339-z).

Following the rules

Owners must comply strictly with the bylaws and the rules made under them. The board, or in a proper case an owner who is affected, can sue for money owed, damages or an injunction. For flagrant or repeated breaches the board can ask for security for future compliance. No action can be brought over displaying a US flag no larger than 4 by 6 feet (RPL §339-j).

HOA owners

Most New York HOAs are not-for-profit corporations, so their records rules are in the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law:

• Minutes and member list. After six months as a member, you can inspect the minutes of member meetings and the member list, on written demand at least five days ahead (N-PCL §621(b)). The association can ask for the same kind of affidavit as a co-op (§621(c)).
• Financial statements. The same members can ask for the annual balance sheet and profit and loss statement (§621(e)).
• Where the dues went. Members of an HOA incorporated under the N-PCL can ask, through the board, to review invoices, ledgers, bank accounts and reconciliations, contracts and other documents about how dues are spent (§621(e-1)).

Board members

The business judgment rule

Courts won't second-guess a co-op board's decision on the merits if the board acted within the scope of its authority, in good faith, and for the purposes of the co-op. In the Court of Appeals' words: "courts will not substitute their judgment for the board's" (Levandusky v One Fifth Ave. Apt. Corp., 75 NY2d 530, 1990). An owner who challenges a decision has to show the board broke its duty of loyalty: acting outside its authority, in bad faith, or with no real connection to the building's welfare.

The same rule applied when a co-op ended a shareholder's proprietary lease for "objectionable" conduct under the lease's own termination clause (40 West 67th Street Corp. v Pullman, Court of Appeals, 13 May 2003). That lease required a two-thirds vote of the shares at a special meeting; the requirement came from the lease, not a statute.

Your duties

• Care and good faith. Directors must act "in good faith and with that degree of care which an ordinarily prudent person" would use in the same position (BCL §717(a)). You can rely on officers, lawyers, accountants and committees you reasonably believe are competent, unless you know something that makes that reliance unwarranted.
• Contracts with a director. A deal with a director, or with a firm a director runs or has a substantial financial interest in, holds up if the director's interest was disclosed and the directors who aren't involved approved it (or the shareholders did, after disclosure). Otherwise the co-op can undo it unless the deal is shown to be "fair and reasonable as to the corporation" (BCL §713).
• The yearly conflict report. At least once a year, co-op and condo boards must give every director a copy of §713, and send owners a report signed by every director listing each contract voted on where a director had an interest: who it was with, the amount and the purpose, who attended, how each director voted, and the dates. If there were none, every director signs a statement saying so (BCL §727; N-PCL §519-a is the not-for-profit version).

Wording for this: a spending resolution, a conflict declaration, the agent transparency letter, and telling owners before an assessment.

Buying in New York

• The offering plan. New co-op, condo and HOA developments are sold under an offering plan filed with the New York Attorney General, and nothing can be offered until the Attorney General has issued a letter saying it was filed (General Business Law §352-e). Amendments update the plan. Read both.
• The mansion tax. An extra 1% of the price when a house, condo unit or co-op apartment sells for $1,000,000 or more. The buyer pays; if the buyer doesn't or is exempt, the seller must (Tax Law §1402-a).
• No set deadline. We found no New York statute setting a time limit for a co-op board to decide your application.

In New York City there's a further tax on residential sales from $2,000,000, on top of the 1% (Tax Law §1402-b):

Letters for this: the building, co-op finance, compliance and apartment enquiries your attorney can send, and raising your loss assessment cover.

NYC buildings: Local Law 97 and facades

Local Law 97: is your building covered?

Local Law 97 sets yearly limits on greenhouse gas emissions for large buildings in New York City. According to the NYC Department of Buildings, it covers:

• a single building over 25,000 gross square feet;
• two or more buildings on the same tax lot that together are over 50,000 gross square feet; and
• two or more condo buildings under the same board of managers that together are over 50,000 gross square feet.

Square footage comes from NYC Department of Finance records. The Department of Buildings publishes a Covered Buildings List every year (see New York links).

The limits, the reports and the penalties

• Limits. Most covered buildings had to meet limits from 2024. The first compliance period is 2024 to 2029, and stricter limits start in 2030. The City's goal is to cut emissions from its largest buildings by 40 percent by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050.
• Two sets of rules. Article 320 (Administrative Code §28-320) covers most private buildings. Article 321 (§28-321) covers certain affordable housing and houses of worship, which show compliance once.
• Reports. Article 320 buildings file an emissions report every year by 1 May (the first was due 1 May 2025), certified by a registered design professional.
• Penalties. $268 per metric ton of CO2e over the limit, per year. Not filing the report: the floor area times $0.50, for each month it's late (NYC Department of Buildings, March 2024).
• Help. Owners can apply for some adjustments, and offsets can count for up to 10% of the limit. NYC Accelerator gives free help to building owners.

In the first year, 19,963 properties (29,031 buildings) had to report. About 95% filed, and 95% of the Article 320 properties that filed met their limits (NYC Department of Buildings, 2024 compliance report).

The facade program (FISP)

• Who. Buildings higher than six stories must have the facade examined by a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector every five years (NYC Construction Codes §28-302.1; 1 RCNY §103-04). The current cycle is Cycle 10, split into sub-cycles A, B and C by the last digit of the block number.
• Ratings. Safe; Safe With a Repair and Maintenance Program (repairs due by a date the inspector sets, one to five years out, and the same conditions can't get this rating two cycles in a row); or Unsafe.
• Unsafe. Public protection goes up immediately, and repairs are due within 90 days unless an extension is filed. Civil penalties can run from 90 days after the unsafe report.

Letters for this: asking the managing agent where the building stands, the 2030 question for the board, and scoping the engineer's modelling.

Co-op or condo at a glance

Who to ask

• Your managing agent, for the documents: the proprietary lease or bylaws, house rules, financial statements and the offering plan.
• A New York real estate attorney, for your own situation, and always on a purchase.
• The NYC Department of Buildings, for Local Law 97 and facade filings.
• NYC Accelerator, for free help with Local Law 97.

What changes next

• Local Law 97, 2030. Stricter limits begin with the 2030 compliance period.
• Reasons for co-op rejections. Proposals to make New York City co-op boards give reasons have been made. None is law as of October 2026.