Four elements, and all four are mandatory

A notice that misses any one of these is arguably not the notice the statute requires, and the consequence lands on the foreclosure action rather than on the board's balance sheet:

1. Ninety days, before commencement. Not ninety days before judgment, not ninety days before the lien is filed — ninety days before the action is commenced. A board that files suit on day sixty has not complied, and the notice cannot be cured retroactively by waiting.

2. Fourteen-point type, at minimum. This is unusually specific for New York drafting and it is the element most likely to be missed, because collection letters are generated from templates set in eleven or twelve point. Compliance turns on the letter itself, not on the lawyer's assurance about it.

3. Both the property address and any other address of record. Not one or the other. For an association with absentee or investor owners — which in New York means most of them — that means the notice goes to the unit and to whatever mailing address the association holds.

4. Three items of content: that the board intends to file a foreclosure action to enforce the lien; the address of the property; and the specific amount due. That last one is a trap for any association whose ledger is not clean. A stated figure that is wrong by the time the action is filed is a problem the statute creates and does not solve.

The word that decides whether it applies to you

RPAPL § 2010 reaches a lien owed to an “incorporated homeowners' association.” An unincorporated New York homeowners association appears to sit outside the section entirely.

That is not a drafting accident so much as a pattern. The one substantial HOA bill introduced in this session, S1177 on developer turnover, defines a covered association as “a New York corporation” and so has the same gap. New York's HOA law keeps being written for incorporated associations, and a meaningful number of older New York associations are not incorporated. If yours is not, the statutory notice duty may not reach you — but your declaration and the ordinary law of liens still do, and proceeding without notice on the theory that a new statute does not apply is the kind of position that gets tested expensively.

The bigger change hiding in the same chapter

Chapter 433 did more than add a notice. Reporting from two New York firms in October 2025 identifies a second effect: the amendment subjects condominium common-charge foreclosures to Article 13 of the RPAPL — foreclosure “in like manner as a mortgage of real property.”³ For a board and its counsel that is a procedural shift, not a paperwork one, and it is the part most likely to change how a New York collection case actually runs. Our New York foreclosure page covers the mechanics.

The chapter also amended § 339-aa to address the lien-filing side, including a provision permitting any member of the board of managers to file a notice of lien where none has been filed within sixty days of the charges falling due. That is a small but real change to who can act when a board is deadlocked or inattentive.

What a New York board faces this week

Pull the last twelve months of collection correspondence and check the type size. If any pre-foreclosure notice since October 16, 2025 went out under fourteen point, the file has a problem that is cheaper to find now than at a motion.

Rebuild the template as a standalone notice. The statute wants a document that says, in fourteen-point type, that the board intends to foreclose, at this address, for this amount. Folding that into a general demand letter invites an argument about whether the notice was given at all. A separate, dated, clearly-labelled notice, sent to both addresses, with proof of mailing retained, is the defensible version.

Reconcile the ledger before the notice, not after. Because the notice must state the specific amount due, the ninety-day clock effectively requires the arrears figure to be settled three months before filing. Late fees, interest, legal fees and any post-notice assessments all complicate what the “amount due” then is. Our collections and liens page covers what New York law lets an association add to the lien.

Assume your counsel may not have flagged it. This law arrived in mid-October 2025, between sessions, with no fanfare, in a state where practitioners do not expect HOA-specific legislation. The trade press has repeatedly described it as a bill awaiting action. A board that has not been told about it should ask.

Why it exists

The measure sits in a national context of rising association foreclosure activity, driven by the same cost pressures pushing New York maintenance and common charges up — insurance premiums, operating costs and delinquencies. A ninety-day notice does not reduce what an owner owes and does not give the owner a defence. What it does is guarantee a documented window in which the owner knows the precise figure and that the association is about to move — which is, in practice, the window in which most of these matters get paid. Our assessment limits page covers the cost side that produces the arrears in the first place.