New York HOA Short-Term Rentals

Quick-Reference Table

Last verified: July 17, 2026

Section 1: Overview — Can an HOA restrict short-term rentals in New York?

New York condominiums restrict short-term rentals through the declaration and bylaws under the Condominium Act, cooperatives through the proprietary lease and bylaws under corporate law, and planned-community homeowners associations through recorded covenants, but in New York City government law independently prohibits most short-term rentals regardless of what the documents say. New York recognizes three legally distinct common-interest forms: condominiums, in which a unit is real property held by deed under the Condominium Act (Real Property Law Article 9-B, § 339-d et seq.);¹ cooperatives, in which a resident owns shares in a corporation and holds a proprietary lease governed by the Business Corporation Law or the Cooperative Corporations Law;¹⁰ and planned-community homeowners associations, which have no comprehensive statute and are governed by covenants and the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law.¹² The cooperative is the dominant form in New York City and is typically the most restrictive on both subletting and transfers, because the proprietary lease usually limits or prohibits subletting and the board may reject a purchaser.^10,11 The central feature of New York is layering: the Multiple Dwelling Law prohibits transient occupancy (rentals under 30 days) in most apartment buildings,³ and New York City Local Law 18 of 2022 requires host registration and bars platforms from processing unregistered bookings,^4,5 so association rules and government law operate as separate, cumulative layers and the more restrictive controls in practice. New York's court names are inverted relative to most states: the Supreme Court is the trial court, the Appellate Division (four Departments) is intermediate, and the Court of Appeals is the highest court.^17,20 The sections below set out the framework by form, the operational tools and enforcement, and recent activity.

Section 2: The legal framework for HOA short-term rental restrictions

2A. The three forms and their governing law

New York does not have a single common-interest statute, and the analysis begins by identifying the form. A condominium is created under the Condominium Act, Real Property Law Article 9-B (§ 339-d et seq.), enacted in 1964.¹ Each unit, together with its common interest, constitutes real property, and the owner holds a deed.² Use of units is governed by the recorded declaration and the bylaws, which the Condominium Act requires and whose contents it specifies.^1,2 The Condominium Act is condominium-specific and is not a version of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act; New York has not adopted UCIOA.¹

A cooperative is a fundamentally different legal structure. A corporation owns the building, and a resident owns shares in that corporation and holds a proprietary lease for an apartment rather than a deed to real property.¹⁰ Cooperatives are governed by the certificate of incorporation, the bylaws, and the proprietary lease, under the Business Corporation Law or the Cooperative Corporations Law.^10,11 Cooperative boards ordinarily exercise strong control over transfers (a board may reject a prospective purchaser) and over subletting (the proprietary lease commonly restricts or prohibits subletting, including short-term rentals).¹¹ Offering plans for the sale of cooperative shares, like offering plans for condominium units, must be filed with and reviewed by the Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau under the Martin Act (General Business Law Article 23-A, § 352-e et seq.).¹³ The Martin Act is an offering-and-disclosure regime governing the sale of securities, including cooperative interests in realty; it is not a rental-restriction statute.¹³

A planned-community homeowners association exists mainly in suburban and upstate areas. New York has no comprehensive planned-community statute. These associations are governed by their recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions, by the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law when the association is organized as a not-for-profit corporation, and by common law.¹² The Attorney General reviews the sponsor's offering plan for a homeowners association, but the office's jurisdiction is limited to the ownership and maintenance of common property.¹²

2B. Rental authority by form, amendments, and grandfathering

Rental authority arises differently in each form. For a condominium, the power to restrict short-term rentals comes from the declaration and bylaws; the Condominium Act does not itself set rental substance, so a use restriction must be found in, or added to, the documents.^1,2 For a cooperative, authority comes from the proprietary lease and bylaws, which typically address subletting directly and are usually the most restrictive on short-term use.¹¹ For a planned-community association, authority comes from the covenants, and New York courts enforce a covenant when the intention is clear and the limitation is reasonable and not offensive to public policy.²¹

Amending the documents to add or strengthen a rental restriction follows the form. A condominium amends its declaration and bylaws by the vote specified in those documents; the Condominium Act does not fix a single statewide percentage for adding a rental restriction, though it sets an 80% threshold to withdraw property from the Act entirely.^1,2 A cooperative amends its proprietary lease and bylaws under the procedures in the corporation's governing documents and corporate law.¹¹ A planned-community association amends its covenants by the process the declaration prescribes.¹² None of these thresholds should be assumed; each must be read from the specific documents.

Because New York is not a UCIOA state and has no 2008-UCIOA owner-protection provision, whether a new restriction binds an existing owner or shareholder is resolved against the governing documents and New York common law, and for cooperatives against the proprietary lease and corporate law.^1,11 New York does not supply a Florida-style or California-style statutory grandfathering shield, so any protection for an existing rental depends on the documents themselves. New York courts review cooperative board decisions under a business-judgment standard: under Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp., courts do not second-guess a board acting in good faith, within its authority, and in furtherance of the cooperative's purposes.¹⁷ That deference extends to a board's enforcement of subletting and occupancy restrictions.

2C. The overriding New York City and local regime, tax, and the layering

For property in New York City, government law is usually the controlling constraint. The Multiple Dwelling Law defines a Class A multiple dwelling (most apartment buildings) as one used only for permanent-residence purposes, meaning occupancy by the same person or family for 30 consecutive days or more; occupancy for fewer than 30 days is transient and generally prohibited unless a permanent occupant is present.³ New York City Local Law 18 of 2022, the Short-Term Rental Registration Law (codified in the Administrative Code, Title 26, chapter 31), requires hosts to register with the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement and bars booking platforms from processing transactions for unregistered listings; enforcement began September 5, 2023.^4,5 The Office of Special Enforcement reports that the vast majority of the city's illegal short-term-rental activity has been eradicated: roughly 3,000 legal short-term rentals remain, down from more than 38,000 active listings on a single platform in early 2023 and an estimated 60,000 illegal listings in 2018.⁶ Local Law 18 also maintains a prohibited-buildings list that, per the Office of Special Enforcement's FY25 report, now totals more than 21,000 buildings, with more than 3,000 host registrations granted and more than 14,000 owners and managers having placed their buildings on the prohibited list; a registration does not authorize any use that would violate a lease, cooperative bylaws, or condominium rules, which keeps the association layer intact.^6,22

At the state level, New York enacted a statewide short-term-rental framework in 2024 (Real Property Law Article 12-D), signed December 21, 2024, and amended by a chapter amendment signed February 28, 2025, with an effective date of April 21, 2025.^7,8 The framework authorizes counties to establish registries, requires booking platforms to file quarterly reports and to collect and remit sales and occupancy taxes, and preserves local authority to ban short-term rentals; it is a registration and tax-collection regime, not a limit on association authority.^7,8 Outside the city, local regulation is significant. In the Town of East Hampton, a rental-registry number is mandatory and, per the town's Rental Registry FAQs, an owner may rent a residential property for fewer than two weeks no more than twice in any six-month period, with the registry number required in all advertisements and first-offense penalties ranging from $3,000 to $15,000 or imprisonment of up to six months.⁹ The Town of Southampton requires a rental permit and imposes a minimum rental term.⁹

Short-term lodging is taxed. New York State sales tax applies at 4%, and the combined state, city, and Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District rate in New York City is 8.875%; New York City also imposes a Hotel Room Occupancy Tax of 5.875% plus a state unit fee of $1.50 per unit per day.^14,15,16 A guest becomes a tax-exempt permanent resident after 90 consecutive days for state sales tax, and after 180 consecutive days for the New York City local tax.¹⁴ The layering point governs the outcome: association documents and government law are separate, cumulative layers, so an owner may be barred from a short-term rental by government law even where the documents would allow it, and an association's documents may restrict rentals more tightly than government law requires. Both layers must be satisfied, and the more restrictive controls.

Section 3: Operational mechanics and enforcement

A. Adopting and applying a valid restriction (the tools)

A minimum-lease-term restriction is the most common association tool. In New York City the Multiple Dwelling Law already sets a 30-day floor by prohibiting transient occupancy in Class A buildings, so an association minimum lease term operates on top of that government line rather than in place of it.³ A condominium ordinarily implements a minimum term through the declaration and bylaws and may require that an owner submit a copy of any lease and that the term not fall below a stated minimum.¹ A cooperative implements restrictions through the proprietary lease, which commonly requires board approval of any sublet, sets initial residency and duration limits, and may prohibit subletting altogether; a sublet in violation of the lease is a ground for enforcement.¹¹ An association may also impose internal registration, owner-information, and lease- or sublet-approval requirements as a condition of any permitted rental, and these internal requirements may be varied only by the governing documents.^1,11

B. Enforcement and the inverted court structure

Before imposing a fine, an association follows the notice and opportunity-to-be-heard requirements in its own governing documents; New York courts generally expect notice and a fair procedure.¹ For a cooperative, board decisions to enforce the proprietary lease receive business-judgment deference, and a board that follows the lease procedure and acts in good faith is generally insulated from judicial second-guessing.^17,18 Available remedies differ by form. A condominium may levy fines where the documents authorize them, seek injunctive relief, and record and foreclose a lien for unpaid common charges under Real Property Law § 339-z.^2,19 A cooperative enforces the proprietary lease, and after a cure period may terminate the lease and cancel the shares; in 40 West 67th Street Corp. v. Pullman, the Court of Appeals confirmed that the business-judgment rule governs a co-op's decision to terminate a tenancy for objectionable conduct following a two-thirds shareholder vote.¹⁸

A contested enforcement action begins in the Supreme Court, which is the trial court of general jurisdiction in New York. An appeal goes to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which sits in four Judicial Departments (First, Second, Third, and Fourth); a further appeal goes to the Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state.^17,18,20 Association enforcement is separate from government enforcement: in New York City the Office of Special Enforcement independently pursues unregistered and unlawful short-term rentals under Local Law 18, and local code offices enforce elsewhere, so an owner may face both an association proceeding and a government action for the same rental.^5,6

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills and local laws

B. Recent rulings

C. Active legislative or local debates

A bill introduced in the New York City Council in November 2024 by Council Member Farah N. Louis would loosen Local Law 18 for one- and two-family homes (allowing up to four guests and removing the host-presence requirement) but remains under review in committee with an uncertain future as of 2026, and towns across the Hudson Valley, the Catskills, and Long Island continue to adopt and tighten local registration and permit rules under the new statewide framework.^6,9

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

New York sits at the restrictive end of the national spectrum. It is a non-UCIOA state with three distinct ownership forms (condominiums under Real Property Law Article 9-B, cooperatives under corporate law and the proprietary lease, and planned-community associations under covenants), an offering-plan review regime under the Martin Act, and, in New York City, the most restrictive large-market short-term-rental regime in the country. That posture is far from states that preempt local bans, such as Florida and Arizona, and different from states that limit HOA rental authority through a single statutory provision, such as California (Civil Code § 4741) and Arizona (A.R.S. § 33-1806.01). In New York the practical outcome is often controlled by government regulation, and association documents and government law are separate, cumulative layers rather than a single rulebook. For a multi-state operator entering New York, that means learning distinct condominium and cooperative mechanics, an inverted court structure, and an overriding municipal regime in New York City that can bar a rental the documents would otherwise permit.

HOA Weekly's New York Short-Term Rentals coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature, New York City, the Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals, and local governments act. Federal frameworks (the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule) also apply to New York associations regardless of the state framework.

Footnotes

1. New York State Senate, Real Property Law Article 9-B (Condominium Act) ↩
2. New York State Senate, RPL § 339-dd (Actions) and Article 9-B sections (status of units, by-laws, lien for common charges) ↩
3. New York City Office of Special Enforcement, Registration Law (30-day transient prohibition and Multiple Dwelling Law background) ↩
4. New York City, Local Law 18 of 2022, full text (NYC Admin. Code, Title 26, ch. 31) ↩
5. New York City Office of Special Enforcement, Registration Law overview ↩
6. New York City Office of Special Enforcement, enforcement and market impact ↩
7. New York State Senate, press release on the statewide Short-Term Rental Registry (S.885-C / A.4130-C) ↩
8. New York State Senate, Bill S820 (2025 chapter amendment; RPL Article 12-D; effective April 21, 2025) ↩
9. Town of East Hampton, Rental Registry FAQs ↩
10. New York Attorney General, Homeowners associations and cooperative/condominium regulation ↩
11. New York Attorney General, real estate syndications and offering-plan review (co-op proprietary-lease structure) ↩
12. New York Attorney General, Homeowners associations ↩
13. New York Attorney General, Real Estate Finance Bureau, Martin Act offering-plan filing (GBL § 352-e) ↩
14. New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Hotel and Short-Term Rental Unit Occupancy (90-day and 180-day thresholds; $1.50 unit fee) ↩
15. New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, sales tax rates (4% state; MCTD 0.375%) ↩
16. New York City Department of Finance, Hotel Room Occupancy Tax (5.875%) ↩
17. New York Court of Appeals, Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp., 75 NY2d 530 (1990) ↩
18. New York Court of Appeals, 40 West 67th Street Corp. v. Pullman, 100 NY2d 147 (2003) ↩
19. New York State Senate, RPL Article 9-B (§ 339-z, lien for common charges) ↩
20. New York State Unified Court System, Appellate Division Third Department ↩
21. New York State Unified Court System, restrictive covenant enforcement (Neponsit Prop. Owners' Assn. v. Emigrant Indus. Sav. Bank) ↩
22. New York City Administrative Code § 26-3102 (registration not authorizing lease, co-op, or condo violations) ↩
23. New York State Unified Court System, West Mountain Assets LLC v. Dobkowski, 2024 NY Slip Op 02355 ↩