The AG's condo conversion comment period closed July 12. What happens next is not defined by law.

On July 12, 2026, the 60-day public comment window on the Attorney General's proposed occupied-conversion rules closed. That window was the only mandatory step in the State Administrative Procedure Act's rulemaking process with a fixed timeline. Everything that follows — the review of written comments, the decision whether to revise the proposed text, the publication of a final adoption notice in the New York State Register — carries no deadline in state law. Seven years after the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 changed the legal framework for occupied building conversions, the implementing regulations at 13 NYCRR Parts 18 and 23 remain in proposed form.

What 13 NYCRR Parts 18 and 23 actually govern.

When a landlord converts an occupied NYC rental building to co-op or condo ownership, the offering plan must be filed with and accepted by the Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau before any unit can be offered to the public. The primary statute is General Business Law § 352-eeee, which sets the framework for occupied conversions: the type of plan required, the percentage of existing tenants who must agree to purchase their units before the plan can be declared effective, and the protections that apply to senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and tenants who choose not to purchase. The REFB's implementing regulations at 13 NYCRR Part 18 and Part 23 translate those statutory requirements into specific procedures for how sponsors draft and submit occupied-conversion offering plans.

The HSTPA 2019 materially amended GBL § 352-eeee. The law rewrote the subscription threshold requirements, established the non-eviction plan as the governing structure for most conversions, and added tenant protections that did not exist in the prior statute. Chapter 696 of the Laws of 2022 made a further technical amendment. Through both changes, 13 NYCRR Parts 18 and 23 remained in their pre-2019 form. The REFB's Review Section processed occupied-conversion offering plans through internal guidance, but the published regulatory text in the Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York continued to reflect the law as it stood before HSTPA.

What the proposed rules would codify.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published May 13, 2026 would bring 13 NYCRR Parts 18 and 23 into alignment with the 2019 and 2022 statutory amendments. Based on the notice published in the New York State Register, the proposed changes address three areas. First, they codify the non-eviction plan as the standard offering structure for occupied conversions, reflecting the HSTPA 2019 change that removed eviction plans as an option except in limited statutory circumstances. Second, they update the subscription threshold procedures to correspond with the 51% tenant-subscription requirement as amended. Third, they revise the procedural protections for senior citizens and persons with disabilities in non-eviction conversion plans. None of these are new legal requirements: the legislature created them in 2019 and 2022. What the proposed rules would add is a codified regulatory text that parties can cite directly, rather than having to read the statute against regulations that predate it.

What SAPA requires after the comment period closes.

Under SAPA § 202, New York agencies proposing new or amended regulations must publish notice in the New York State Register and allow at least 60 days for written public comment. That is where the mandatory schedule ends. After the comment period closes, the agency must review all written comments received before adopting a final rule. If material changes to the proposed rule follow from that review, the agency must republish and allow a second comment period before finalizing. If the changes are not material, no second comment period is required. The final rule becomes effective when an adoption notice is published in the New York State Register, or 30 days after publication if the agency designates a later effective date. None of those steps carries a required date. The table below maps each SAPA step against the question of whether a deadline applies.

The structural problem the timeline reveals.

The gap between the July 12 comment period closing and any final rule is not a sign that the REFB is unwilling to act. It is a feature of how New York state administrative law works. SAPA's rulemaking process reflects a deliberate legislative choice to give agencies discretion over their own rulemaking pace. That is a reasonable design for most regulatory contexts. For occupied-conversion offering plans, the design creates a specific structural problem: the REFB sits as the sole regulator of every occupied-conversion offering plan submitted in New York City, the agency's regulations are now seven years out of date with the governing statute, and the mechanism for updating those regulations has no mandatory completion date.

This connects directly to the structural diagnosis in the prior CCNYC post on AG incapacity in governance disputes: the REFB's limitations are architectural, not volitional. The conversion rulemaking gap differs from the governance enforcement gap in kind. The REFB has clear statutory authority over occupied-conversion offering plans, and it is using that authority by proposing rule updates. But the absence of a required finalization timeline means that authority operates without a completion guarantee. A proposed rule that receives no final adoption notice has no legal effect, no matter how long it has been pending.

What tenants and buyers should rely on now.

For tenants in rental buildings that have received a conversion offering plan notice, or that may receive one: the protections GBL § 352-eeee provides are in effect by statute, regardless of the regulatory gap. The statute requires that any occupied conversion proceed as a non-eviction plan unless the sponsor meets a statutory exception. The 51% subscription threshold, senior citizen protections, and disabled-tenant provisions in the 2019 and 2022 amendments are all operative. The absence of a final codifying rule in 13 NYCRR does not suspend those rights. If a sponsor attempts to proceed under procedures that conflict with the current statute, a formal complaint to the REFB through the AG complaint tool is the starting point. The post on how to write an REFB complaint explains how to structure that filing to get a written response.

For buyers considering a purchase in an occupied-conversion building: your attorney should verify the offering plan's compliance with the current statutory requirements under GBL § 352-eeee directly, not against the text of 13 NYCRR Part 18 or Part 23 as currently codified. The published regulatory text predates HSTPA 2019. The statute is the controlling authority. The REFB's offering plan database at offeringplan.datasearch.ag.ny.gov allows any buyer to review the full amendment history of the offering plan behind a specific building before signing a contract.

Bottom line.

The comment period closing on July 12 is a procedural milestone, not the end of the rulemaking. The REFB must now review the written comments it received and decide whether to revise the proposed rule, republish it, or proceed to a final adoption notice. SAPA sets no deadline for any of those steps. The proposed updates to 13 NYCRR Parts 18 and 23, if finalized, would align the REFB's published regulations with the law as it has stood since 2019, give sponsors and tenants a binding regulatory text to cite, and close a seven-year codification gap. Until that happens, the statute governs and the regulations do not match it. That is a structural gap, and the SAPA process offers no mechanism to force its closure on a schedule. Tenants and buyers in the occupied-conversion context are not without statutory protections, but they are operating in a regulatory record that has not kept pace with the legislative one.

Primary sources:
NY AG REFB Proposed Rulemaking page — Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, May 13, 2026 (NY State Register)
13 NYCRR Part 18 — Cooperative and condominium offering plans (LII / Cornell Law)
13 NYCRR Part 23 — Occupied rental conversion plans (LII / Cornell Law)
General Business Law § 352-eeee — Occupied conversion statute (NY Senate)
NY State Administrative Procedure Act § 202 — Rulemaking procedure (FindLaw)
REFB Offering Plan Database (offeringplan.datasearch.ag.ny.gov)

Companion resources: The AG published proposed condo conversion rules (June 11, 2026) · Why the AG cannot help with most condo governance disputes · A six-year enforcement gap on condo offering plans ended July 1 · How to write an AG REFB complaint · Draft your REFB complaint · CCNYC methodology