New York's occupied conversion rules are final. Here is where they stop.

Seven years and three months after the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 overhauled New York's occupied-conversion framework, the Attorney General's Real Estate Finance Bureau adopted final implementing regulations. Effective September 16, 2026, amended 13 NYCRR Part 18 and Part 23 govern how sponsors submit offering plans for converting occupied rental buildings to cooperative or condominium ownership in New York City. The rules also close a specific tenant-protection gap that the emergency regulations governing the prior decade did not address. What the rules do not, and cannot, cover is the same governance gap that this site has documented in other posts: what happens to the building and its owners after closing.

What the September 16 rules actually say.

The amended regulations, adopted under General Business Law §§ 352-e(2-b) and 352-e(6), implement two rounds of statutory changes: HSTPA 2019 (Chapter 36 of the Laws of 2019), which materially rewrote the occupied-conversion framework, and Chapter 696 of the Laws of 2022, which made further technical amendments to GBL § 352-eeee. The rules apply to all offering plans submitted under GBL § 352-eeee on or after June 15, 2019, including plans the bureau accepted for submission but has not yet declared effective.

The most significant substantive change is the extension of the election option to eligible senior citizens and eligible disabled persons in noneviction plans. Before September 16, that election mechanism existed only for tenants in eviction plans. Tenants in noneviction plans lacked it, which left them without a formal protected status during the 10- to 24-month window between offering-plan submission and the plan's declaration of effectiveness. Under the permanent rules, tenants in noneviction plans can now elect eligible senior or eligible disabled status during the conversion process, giving them the protections that have applied since the 1980s in eviction-plan conversions.

The rules also address the transitional mixed-occupancy period: the phase in which purchasers and non-purchasing tenants share the building before the sponsor relinquishes board control. They specify what the offering plan must disclose about that period and what rights non-purchasing tenants retain while unit sales continue. Those disclosure obligations were implicit under prior guidance; the permanent regulations make them explicit in the published regulatory text.

What the emergency regulations were and why they expired.

Before September 16, the occupied-conversion rules in 13 NYCRR Parts 18 and 23 dated to a set of emergency regulations originally adopted in 2015. Emergency regulations are a standard SAPA mechanism for responding to a policy need before a permanent rulemaking cycle can be completed. They have a limited duration and must be re-adopted at intervals to remain in effect. They can be extended for years, but they cannot become permanent on their own: only a final adoption notice in the New York State Register creates a permanent rule.

The REFB renewed those emergency protections repeatedly as the permanent rulemaking cycle for the HSTPA 2019 and 2022 amendments proceeded through its required SAPA steps: the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on May 13, 2026, the 60-day public comment period that closed July 12, 2026, and then the review of written comments before finalizing the text. The emergency regulations expired on September 15, 2026. The permanent rules took effect September 16. The AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau issued a policy memorandum that day addressing the transition from emergency to permanent regulations and confirming what protections carried forward.

Where the REFB's authority ends: the closing table.

GBL § 352-e authorizes the AG's bureau to review offering plans for compliance before they are filed and declared effective. That authority covers the period from plan submission through the declaration of effectiveness. It covers what sponsors must disclose, what tenant protections the plan must include, and what conditions the sponsor must satisfy before the plan can be declared effective and units offered for sale.

When the plan is declared effective and title begins transferring to unit buyers, the offering-plan review process is complete. GBL § 352-e and § 352-eeee do not grant the REFB authority to oversee what occurs in the building after closing. Reserve fund adequacy, managing agent conduct, board election procedures, common charge disputes, and governance accountability are outside the REFB's jurisdiction from that moment forward. Those were outside the REFB's jurisdiction before September 16, 2026. They remain outside it after. That is not a flaw in the September 16 rules. The rules do exactly what GBL §§ 352-e(2-b) and 352-e(6) authorize: govern the offering-plan format and the filing process. Post-closing governance would require a separate statutory grant of authority that New York has not enacted.

The 87-month implementation gap and what it reveals.

HSTPA 2019 became law on June 14, 2019. The implementing regulations took effect on September 16, 2026. The gap is 87 months. Nothing in SAPA required the REFB to finalize the implementing regulations within any particular period, and the agency did not violate any legal obligation by taking that time. The bureau operated throughout under internal guidance and the extended emergency regulations.

What the 87-month gap illustrates is a pattern the site has documented in a different context: the REFB's capacity is structured around the offering-plan review function, and that function is a finite, transactional task. The bureau accepts a plan, reviews it, requires amendments, and declares it effective. That workflow does not include an ongoing regulatory relationship with the buildings that come out of it. The 2019 statute added new requirements to the front end of that workflow. Working those requirements into a permanent regulatory text — through the full SAPA cycle of proposed rulemaking, public comment, comment review, and final adoption — is a years-long administrative project, not a sign of bad faith.

The consequence is that for the 87 months between HSTPA 2019 and September 2026, sponsors processing occupied-conversion plans operated under emergency regulations that did not fully reflect the amended statute. Tenants in noneviction plans lacked the election mechanism that would have given them eligible-senior or eligible-disabled status. Those tenants are not retroactively covered by the September 16 rule for anything that occurred before it took effect.

What tenants in converting buildings should know now.

For tenants currently in a rental building that has received an occupied-conversion offering plan notice, the September 16 rules are operative. The noneviction plan election right is available. The transitional-period disclosures the offering plan must include are now codified in the regulatory text. If a sponsor attempts to proceed under procedures that conflict with the current statute or the September 16 regulations, a formal complaint to the REFB is the starting point. The how to write an REFB complaint post covers the structure that gets a written response. The AG complaint tool on this site will draft the filing.

For anyone who completes a purchase in a converted building, the REFB's role ends at the closing. The managing agent who will administer the building from that day forward needs no state license in New York. The board that will govern it is not required to maintain a reserve fund, conduct a reserve study, or provide an independent audit. No state agency has authority to adjudicate a governance dispute that arises after the plan is declared effective. That is the same gap this site documented in Why the NY AG can't help with most condo governance disputes, and the September 16 rules do not change it.

Bottom line.

New York's occupied conversion rules are now permanent. The September 16 regulations implement what HSTPA 2019 required, incorporate the 2022 amendments, and close a real tenant-protection gap by extending the eligible-senior and eligible-disabled election mechanism to noneviction plans. That work took 87 months and represents the REFB doing what its statute authorizes within the SAPA framework.

The structural limit the rules confirm is the same limit this site has traced in prior posts. GBL 352-e authorizes offering-plan review. It does not authorize post-closing governance. No building that converts under these regulations will, on the day the plan is declared effective, gain a licensed managing agent, a required reserve fund, or a state agency with authority to take a governance complaint. The 14,062 condo and co-op buildings in New York City that converted years or decades ago carry that gap already. The September 16 finalization does not change it for them, and it does not change it for the buildings converting today.

Primary sources:
NY AG REFB Recent Rulemaking — Final rule effective September 16, 2026 (ag.ny.gov)
13 NYCRR Part 18 — Format and content, occupied conversion plans (ag.ny.gov)
13 NYCRR Part 23 — Occupied rental conversion plans (ag.ny.gov)
General Business Law § 352-eeee — Occupied conversion statute (nysenate.gov)
General Business Law § 352-e — REFB authority statute (nysenate.gov)

Companion resources: The AG's condo conversion comment period closed July 12 (July 14, 2026) · The AG published proposed condo conversion rules (June 11, 2026) · A six-year enforcement gap on condo offering plans ended July 1 (July 1, 2026) · Why the NY AG can't help with most condo governance disputes · How to write an AG REFB complaint · Draft your REFB complaint · AG REFB jurisdiction gap (issues page)