New York’s condo bill of rights passed the Senate twice and reaches almost nobody
New York’s condo bill of rights passed the Senate twice and reaches almost nobody
2026-09-15 · New York · Legislation · Pending — not yet law
New York's “Residential Condominium Owner's Bill of Rights” has now passed the State Senate unanimously in two consecutive years — 60–0 on April 30, 2025 and 61–0 on March 18, 2026 — and the Assembly has never voted on it. It sits in the Assembly Housing Committee, where its companion A5227 has had no action since January 7, 2026.1
Before anything else, read the bill's first sentence, because most coverage of it is wrong about who it covers. New Real Property Law § 339-mm would begin:
“The organizational and operating documents of a not-for-profit residential condominium association established or operating pursuant to the laws of the state and managing the common charges, elements, expenses, or profits of thirty-five hundred or more units shall guarantee the following rights to each unit owner.”2
Two filters, and they are severe
The bill applies only where the association is not-for-profit and manages 3,500 or more units. That is a handful of developments statewide — the very large Queens and Bronx complexes, not the ordinary New York condominium.
The sponsor's memorandum is internally inconsistent with its own bill on this point. It describes protecting owners of “both privately owned and not for profit condo boards,” which the text does not do.3 The text controls.
What the five rights actually are
The bill enumerates a right to transparency, a right to timely decisions, voting rights, a right to notice, and a right against extraordinary expenses. Several are ordinary good practice. Two have teeth.
The transparency subdivision is unusually specific. Beyond financial statements, consultants' reports, municipal inspection reports and approved minutes on request, it requires that “the approved minutes of all board and unit owner meetings shall be posted in a prominent place accessible to all unit owners in each building comprising the condominium within one day of their approval.” Its definition of “financial statements” runs to a full paragraph and expressly reaches “a comparison of any and all bidding processes for work to be done on the condominium” and “the association's IRS form nine-hundred-ninety, if applicable, for each of the three most current fiscal years.”
The provision that transfers real power
Subdivision 5, the “right against extraordinary expenses,” is the one that would change how a covered board operates:
“No less than once in every five years the board shall propose expense limits which shall be included in the notice of the annual or any other meeting of the unit owners. An opportunity for unit owners to comment on such proposal and to offer lower expense limits shall be included in the agenda for such meeting. At the conclusion of the comment period the board shall, by an open vote, adopt expense limits not to exceed those proposed by the board which shall be effective until changed. Once approved by vote, the board shall not enter into contracts for extraordinary expenses without approval of the unit owners, unless it is deemed to be an emergency or is required for refinancing of the mortgage.”
Read the sequence carefully. The board proposes limits; owners may propose lower ones; the board may adopt limits “not to exceed those proposed by the board”; and once limits exist, an extraordinary-expense contract requires an owner vote. The only carve-outs are emergency and mortgage refinancing. That is a structural change to the capital-spending authority New York condominium boards currently hold under their declarations and our budget approval framework.
The Attorney General would gain ongoing jurisdiction
Subdivision 6 is short and consequential:
“The attorney general is authorized to enforce the provisions of this section and may, upon the attorney general's own initiative, or in response to a complaint by one or more unit owners, investigate allegations of any failure to comply with the provisions hereof.”
Today the Attorney General's condominium jurisdiction largely runs out once an offering plan is declared effective, unless the sponsor is still in control or is breaching a plan commitment. This would give the office a standing basis to investigate ongoing governance at a covered association, on a single owner's complaint. Section 2 adds a companion duty: within six months, the Attorney General “shall promulgate a handbook summarizing the rights of unit owners vis-a-vis condominium associations.”
Two smaller provisions that would bind immediately
A board member who sells must resign at closing. Subdivision 3(c) requires a member elected while a unit owner who sells and ceases to be a unit owner to “resign from such board no later than the closing date of such sale.” The Condominium Act does not require that today, and many declarations are silent. Our director qualifications page covers what New York law does and does not require of a sitting board member.
Election results get a one-business-day posting deadline. Subdivision 3(b) requires final results “including a tally of the votes received by each candidate” to be posted within one business day of availability. Subdivision 3(a) requires a meeting to fill a board vacancy within sixty days where the vacancy occurs more than six months before the annual meeting — see our board elections page for the current baseline.
The document-amendment mandate is the part boards would feel first
Section 3 sets the effective date and a conversion duty:
“This act shall take effect immediately; provided, however, that as to residential condominium associations existing and operating as such on the effective date of this act the boards of managers of such associations shall within one year of the effective date of this act take all steps necessary to amend the appropriate organizational and operating documents of such associations to implement the provisions of this act.”
A covered board would not merely have to comply in practice; it would have to amend its declaration and bylaws within a year — which in a 3,500-unit association means an amendment campaign across thousands of owners, with whatever supermajority its own documents require.
Why it keeps passing one house and dying in the other
The pattern is now established across two sessions: unanimous in the Senate, never reported in Assembly Housing. The bill also competes for a section number. Four different 2025–2026 bills all claim Real Property Law § 339-mm — this one, the two reserve-study bills, and the inspection-disclosure bill. Only one can be enacted as drafted, which is a small but real drafting obstacle on top of the political one.
A separate and considerably broader measure, A1505, would create a similar bill of rights with no unit-count threshold and no not-for-profit limitation, reaching “every residential condominium established or operating pursuant to the laws of the state.” It has never been reported out of committee and has no Senate companion. The narrower bill is the one that keeps advancing.
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