Key Findings

• The New York Condominium Act (Real Property Law Article 9-B) is a comparatively thin framework statute. It imposes a general duty to operate, maintain, repair, and replace the common elements but no fixed-timetable structural or milestone inspection and no reserve-study mandate.
• Inspection obligations that do exist are code-based (NYC Construction Codes and FISP in the city; the statewide Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code enforced locally elsewhere), insurer-driven, or declaration-driven.
• Post-Surfside activity in Albany has been limited to disclosure and transparency bills (S7541/A8337), none enacted. At the city level, New York City enacted Local Law 79 of 2024 directing a proactive, risk-based inspection program, but this is a New York City measure, not a statewide condominium mandate.
• Cooperatives, a large parallel ownership form in New York, are governed by corporate law and proprietary leases rather than the Condominium Act.

Details

Section 1: Overview — Condo safety inspections in New York

New York has not enacted a Surfside-style milestone or structural inspection statute for condominiums, and it has not adopted a structural integrity reserve study (SIRS) requirement of the kind Florida created in 2022.¹ Safety-inspection obligations instead come from a layered set of sources: the condominium board's general duty to operate, maintain, and repair the common elements under the New York Condominium Act (Real Property Law Article 9-B), the New York City Construction Codes and facade program (or, outside the city, the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code enforced locally), property-insurance carrier conditions, and the recorded declaration and by-laws.² The defining local mechanism is New York City's Facade Inspection Safety Program (FISP), operating under Local Law 11 (originally Local Law 10 of 1980), which requires periodic facade inspections of buildings taller than six stories and reaches many condominium and cooperative high-rises.³

The condominium statute is comparatively thin, cooperatives are a large parallel ownership form governed by corporate law and proprietary leases rather than the Condominium Act, and New York's court names are inverted (the Supreme Court is the trial court, the Appellate Division is the intermediate appellate court, and the Court of Appeals is the highest court).⁴ Nationally, New York sits with the no-mandate states, in contrast to statutory-mandate states such as Florida.¹ The sections below set out the statutory framework, the compliance obligations by category, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. The NY Condominium Act (RPL Article 9-B): maintenance, insurance, and the condominium-cooperative distinction

New York condominiums are governed by Article 9-B of the Real Property Law, known as the Condominium Act (RPL § 339-d et seq.).⁵ The Act is a comparatively thin, framework statute: it defines "operation of the property" to include "the maintenance, repair and replacement of, and the making of any additions and improvements to, the common elements," and it leaves the detailed allocation of responsibility to the declaration and by-laws.⁶ Section 339-i, titled "Common elements," addresses the undivided common interest appurtenant to each unit and the board-exercised right of access to units for emergency repairs, but it doesn't itself impose a scheduled inspection duty.⁷ Section 339-v requires that the by-laws provide for the operation of the property and for restrictions respecting the use and maintenance of units and common elements, and it permits (but doesn't require) the by-laws to provide for reserves for major and minor maintenance, repairs, and replacements.⁸

On insurance, RPL § 339-bb requires the board of managers to insure the building against fire and other hazards only "if required by the declaration, the by-laws or by a majority of the unit owners," with mandatory full-replacement-cost coverage only for qualified leasehold condominiums.⁹ Section 339-cc requires the board to promptly repair and reconstruct the building after damage or destruction, using insurance proceeds, with any deficiency treated as a common expense.¹⁰ Cooperatives are treated distinctly: they're governed by corporate law and proprietary leases rather than the Condominium Act.¹¹ The Act imposes no scheduled structural or milestone inspection and no reserve-study mandate; the by-laws' reserve provision is permissive, and actual periodic inspection obligations arise from local ordinances.¹²

2B. NYC's facade inspection program, building and fire codes, and elevators

New York City's Facade Inspection Safety Program, under Local Law 11 (codified at NYC Administrative Code § 28-302 and 1 RCNY § 103-04), requires owners of buildings taller than six stories to have exterior walls and appurtenances inspected by a Qualified Exterior Wall Inspector every five years and to file a technical report with the Department of Buildings; the current Cycle 10 runs from February 21, 2025 through February 21, 2030.¹³ Because many condominium and cooperative buildings in the city exceed six stories, FISP reaches a large share of them, though it examines the building envelope and appurtenances rather than the whole structure.¹⁴ New York City administers its own Construction Codes; the statewide Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code, maintained by the Department of State's Division of Building Standards and Codes, applies "in every part of the State with the exception of New York City" and is enforced by local governments.¹⁵

For fire and life safety, the statewide code requires periodic fire safety and property maintenance inspections of all multiple dwellings, at intervals set locally but not to exceed three years for such buildings; New York City fire enforcement is handled by the FDNY and, upstate, by local code officials in coordination with the Office of Fire Prevention and Control.¹⁶ Elevators in New York City must undergo a Category 1 test annually and a Category 5 test every five years, plus periodic inspections, all filed with the Department of Buildings.¹⁷ New York City also assesses parking structures every six years under Local Law 126 of 2021 (Article 323).¹⁸ These regimes impose obligations at construction and for specific systems (facades, fire safety, elevators, parking structures) but don't create a comprehensive periodic structural inspection of the whole building of the Florida kind.

2C. Insurance, the declaration, and the practical inspection drivers

The property and casualty insurance requirement in RPL § 339-bb is conditional for ordinary condominiums, depending on the declaration, by-laws, or a majority vote of owners.⁹ In practice, carriers frequently impose their own inspection and maintenance conditions as a condition of coverage; these are market-driven rather than statutory.¹⁹ The recorded declaration and by-laws are the operative documents that set the actual inspection and maintenance cadence for a given building, since the statute delegates the specifics to those instruments.⁸ Where a condominium board is incorporated, the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law governs corporate formalities but imposes no inspection duty.²⁰ The operational takeaway is that inspection obligations come from the NYC Construction Codes and FISP (or the upstate state code), insurer conditions, and the declaration read together, not from any single condo-safety-inspection statute.

Section 3: Compliance obligations

A. Structural and building-envelope obligations

• The board's duty to maintain, repair, and replace the common elements is a general duty under RPL Article 9-B, implemented through the declaration and by-laws (source type: statutory, RPL Article 9-B, plus declaration-driven). It's a general duty to maintain plus building-code compliance, not a periodic statutory structural inspection.⁶
• In New York City, buildings taller than six stories must complete a FISP facade inspection every five years (source type: building code, NYC Administrative Code § 28-302; 1 RCNY § 103-04).¹³
• In New York City, parking structures must be assessed every six years under Local Law 126 (source type: building code, NYC Administrative Code Article 323; 1 RCNY § 103-13).¹⁸

B. Fire and life-safety obligations

• Outside New York City, multiple dwellings are subject to periodic fire safety and property maintenance inspections at intervals not to exceed three years (source type: fire/building code, Uniform Code; Executive Law § 381; 19 NYCRR Part 1203).¹⁶
• In New York City, the FDNY enforces fire and life-safety requirements for residential buildings (source type: fire code).¹⁶

C. Elevator and mechanical-systems obligations

• New York City elevators require an annual Category 1 test, a Category 5 test every five years, and periodic inspections filed with the Department of Buildings (source type: building code, NYC Administrative Code Article 304; 1 RCNY § 103-02).¹⁷
• Outside New York City, elevator safety is governed by the state Uniform Code and enforced by local jurisdictions (source type: building code).¹⁵

D. Reserve, insurance, and disclosure obligations

• There's no statewide reserve-study mandate for condominiums; by-laws may provide for reserves but aren't required to (source type: statutory, RPL § 339-v).⁸
• Property/casualty insurance is required only if the declaration, by-laws, or a majority of owners so require, and is mandatory only for qualified leasehold condominiums (source type: statutory, RPL § 339-bb); carrier inspection conditions are insurance-driven.⁹
• Offering plans for condominiums and cooperatives are reviewed by the New York Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau under the Martin Act; this concerns offering and disclosure, not structural inspection (source type: statutory, General Business Law Article 23-A).²¹

There's no single New York condo-safety-inspection statute; most obligations are code-based, insurer-driven, or declaration-based.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

C. Active legislative debates

At the state level, post-Surfside proposals in Albany have been limited to disclosure and transparency bills (such as S7541/A8337) rather than a statewide milestone-inspection or SIRS mandate, and none has been enacted.²² At the New York City level, the Council enacted Local Law 79 of 2024 (Int. 0904-A), sponsored by Council Member Pierina Sanchez, chair of the Committee on Housing and Buildings, and adopted in the wake of the December 2023 partial collapse at 1915 Billingsley Terrace in the Bronx and the April 2023 fatal parking-garage collapse at 57 Ann Street in Lower Manhattan; it directs the Department of Buildings to establish a proactive, risk-based inspection program using predictive analytics.²⁵

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

New York belongs to the group of states with no dedicated condominium structural-inspection mandate. That contrasts with statutory-mandate states such as Florida, whose milestone inspection program (Florida Statutes § 553.899, enacted through Senate Bill 4-D, signed May 26, 2022 as a direct response to the June 24, 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside that killed 98 people) requires a structural inspection of condominium and cooperative buildings three or more stories tall at 30 years of age (25 years near the coast) and every 10 years after, alongside a structural integrity reserve study requirement later refined by SB 154 (2023) and HB 913 (2025).²⁶ It also contrasts with California's exterior elevated element inspections under Civil Code § 5551 (associated with SB 326), which require condominium associations to conduct a visual inspection of balconies and other elevated elements at least once every nine years, with the first inspection due by January 1, 2025.²⁷

The practical implication for multi-state operators is significant: a firm managing Florida condominiums cannot assume Florida's milestone or SIRS obligations exist in New York, and the absence of a New York mandate doesn't eliminate liability, because the duty to maintain, the building and fire codes, and insurer conditions still apply. New York has shown legislative momentum only toward disclosure measures, not toward a structural-inspection or reserve mandate.²² That same gap carries a federal-financing consequence: because RPL § 339-v leaves reserve funding permissive, a New York board that never funds reserves risks falling short of the levels FHA and VA condominium project approval reviews, independent of any state-law duty to maintain them.²⁸

Recommendations

• Immediate (all New York condominiums): Confirm which local regime applies. In New York City, verify FISP (Local Law 11) sub-cycle status for Cycle 10 (February 21, 2025 through February 21, 2030) for any building above six stories, plus elevator Category 1/Category 5 filings and, where relevant, Local Law 126 parking-structure assessments. Outside the city, confirm the local code-enforcement schedule for multiple-dwelling fire safety and property maintenance inspections (interval not to exceed three years).
• Immediate (governance): Read the recorded declaration and by-laws to identify the building's own maintenance and inspection provisions, and confirm whether the by-laws establish reserves. Because RPL § 339-v makes reserves permissive, a building may have none by default.
• Near-term (risk and insurance): Treat carrier inspection conditions as binding operational requirements even though they aren't statutory, and document maintenance of building-wide common elements. The German v 333 Rector Garage ruling shows that a board must be able to prove it had no maintenance duty to win summary judgment, so contemporaneous inspection and repair records matter.
• Monitoring thresholds that would change this guidance: Enactment of any bill amending RPL Article 9-B to create a mandatory structural or milestone inspection, a SIRS-style reserve study, or a statewide inspection regime (currently only disclosure bills S7541/A8337 are pending, both in committee); promulgation of Department of Buildings rules implementing Local Law 79 of 2024's proactive inspection program; or any expansion of FISP or Local Law 126. Any of these would warrant a same-quarter update.

Caveats

• This page states negative facts (no milestone statute, no SIRS, no reserve-study mandate) verified against the current text of RPL Article 9-B and the absence of any enacted structural-inspection statute; these are accurate as of the July 20, 2026 verification date but are inherently subject to future legislation.
• Bill statuses reflect the 2025-2026 session as posted on nysenate.gov; bills can advance or die without notice, so verify status before relying on it.
• FISP, elevator, and parking-structure requirements are New York City programs and don't apply statewide; upstate obligations flow from the state Uniform Code as enforced by each local government, and local enforcement schedules vary.
• Local Law 79 of 2024 is a New York City law; its operational effect depends on Department of Buildings implementation and doesn't create a statewide condominium inspection mandate.

1. Florida Statutes § 553.899, Mandatory structural inspections (milestone inspections) ↩
2. NY Real Property Law Article 9-B, Condominium Act ↩
3. NYC Department of Buildings, Facade & Local Law (FISP) ↩
4. NY Real Property Law § 339-ee, Effect of other laws ↩
5. NY Real Property Law § 339-d, Short title ↩
6. NY Real Property Law § 339-e, Definitions ↩
7. NY Real Property Law § 339-i, Common elements ↩
8. NY Real Property Law § 339-v, Contents of by-laws ↩
9. NY Real Property Law § 339-bb, Insurance ↩
10. NY Real Property Law § 339-cc, Repair or reconstruction ↩
11. NY Real Property Law § 339-ee, Effect of other laws ↩
12. NY Real Property Law Article 9-B (full section index) ↩
13. NYC Department of Buildings, Facade & Local Law (FISP Cycle 10) ↩
14. NYC Department of Buildings, Facade & Local Law ↩
15. NY Department of State, Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code ↩
16. NY Department of State, Legal Memorandum LG03 (fire safety and property maintenance inspection intervals; Executive Law § 381) ↩
17. NYC Department of Buildings, Elevator Compliance ↩
18. NYC Department of Buildings, Periodic Inspection of Parking Structures (Local Law 126 of 2021) ↩
19. NY Real Property Law § 339-bb, Insurance (statutory insurance is conditional; carrier conditions are market-driven) ↩
20. NY Real Property Law § 339-v, Contents of by-laws (incorporation of the board of managers) ↩
21. NY Attorney General, Before You Buy a Co-op or Condo (Real Estate Finance Bureau; Martin Act, General Business Law Article 23-A) ↩
22. NY Senate Bill 2025-S7541 ↩
23. NY Assembly Bill 2025-A8337 ↩
24. German v 333 Rector Garage, LLC, 2024 NY Slip Op 06152 (App Div, 1st Dept) ↩
25. NYC Local Law 79 of 2024 (Int. 0904-A), Proactive Inspection Program ↩
26. Florida Statutes § 553.899, milestone inspections (SB 4-D 2022; SB 154 2023; HB 913 2025) ↩
27. California Civil Code § 5551, Inspection of exterior elevated elements (SB 326) ↩
28. HUD, FHA Condominiums (insurance coverage, financial condition, and physical property condition review; projects must comply with applicable state law) ↩