A six-year enforcement gap on condo offering plans ended July 1, 2026.

For six years and four months, a New York condo sponsor could market and sell apartments without updating its offering plan to reflect current prices or changed financial disclosures. The AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau suspended those enforcement requirements in March 2020. That window closed July 1, 2026. What it leaves behind is a population of buyers who transacted on stale disclosures and have no retroactive remedy under the law.

What an offering plan is and who receives it.

An offering plan is the disclosure document a condo sponsor must prepare, file with the AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau, and obtain acceptance for before offering any unit to the public. Under General Business Law §352-e, no sponsor may offer or sell cooperative or condominium units in New York without first having a plan accepted by the AG. The plan describes the building, the units, the prices, the projected common charge budget, the governance documents, the sponsor's financial condition, and the legal structure of the offering. It is the foundational disclosure document for every condo purchase in New York.

The plan does not stay static. Under 13 NYCRR Part 20.5, sponsors must file an amendment whenever material facts change: a price-change amendment is required before marketing any unit at a price not listed in the current plan, and a financial update amendment is required when the sponsor's financial condition, the project's projected budget, or other material facts have changed. A plan that has gone without required amendments is, in REFB terminology, a "stale" plan. Marketing or selling units under a stale plan violates the Martin Act.

What the six-year enforcement pause actually permitted.

In March 2020, the REFB published guidance relaxing those requirements in response to the COVID-19 emergency. The guidance stated, in direct terms, that "REF will not take enforcement action against sponsors that do not file financial update amendments yet continue to market and sell apartments/units/homes." The price-change amendment requirement was similarly relaxed: sponsors could continue selling at prices not listed in the plan without filing the required updates. That relief period ran until January 7, 2026. A six-month grace period followed, during which the REFB gave sponsors notice that enforcement would resume but still did not pursue violations. That grace period ended July 1, 2026.

In practice, the pause spanned the hottest residential sales market New York City has seen in a generation. Between March 2020 and July 2026, sponsors selling units in active condo developments could operate on offering plans whose financial disclosures reflected pre-pandemic budgets, prices listed years before the current asking prices, and sponsor financial conditions that may have changed materially during that time. A buyer in 2023 could receive an offering plan that had not been updated since 2017. Nothing in the REFB's guidance required sponsors to disclose to buyers that the plan was operating under the relief period.

What changes on July 1, 2026.

The REFB's December 23, 2025 policy update ends the pause. Beginning July 1, 2026, a sponsor with a stale offering plan must file a financial update amendment with the REFB and wait for acceptance before marketing or selling any units. Sponsors that continue selling under a stale plan after that date face enforcement action: fines, injunctions against further sales, and referral for potential prosecution under GBL Article 23-A. For active developments that did not bring their plans current before the grace period expired, the path forward requires filing an updated amendment and waiting for REFB review.

For buyers contracting on new condo units after July 1, 2026, the offering plan they receive at contract signing should reflect current pricing and updated financials. That was not guaranteed during the enforcement gap. The table below compares what buyers could and could not rely on before and after July 1.

How to check an offering plan's filing status before you sign.

The REFB maintains a searchable database of every accepted offering plan and every amendment filed at offeringplan.datasearch.ag.ny.gov. Any buyer can search by building address or sponsor name and review the full amendment filing history. Before signing a purchase contract on any new condo unit, check the database for the following:

• The date of the most recent price-change amendment. If the last price amendment predates 2020, the plan may not have been updated during the relief period.
• The date of the most recent financial update amendment. This reflects whether the sponsor's financial disclosures are current.
• Whether any amendment was accepted after July 1, 2026. If a sponsor is marketing units after that date and no post-July amendment appears, ask your attorney to contact the REFB before closing.

The database does not flag plans as "stale" in its interface. The determination of staleness depends on the REFB's internal review of the last amendment against current regulatory requirements. Your real estate attorney or the REFB itself can confirm whether the plan is in compliance before you close.

What buyers from the enforcement period are left with.

The enforcement resumption is prospective. The REFB will pursue sponsors who market under stale plans after July 1, 2026. It will not reopen purchases that closed between March 2020 and July 1, 2026. The reason is structural, not administrative. Under GBL Article 23-A, the Martin Act authorizes the AG to investigate and bring enforcement actions against sponsors. It does not create a private right of action for individual purchasers. A buyer who purchased in 2023 from a plan that had not been updated since 2018 cannot bring a Martin Act claim in their own name. The AG may investigate a specific sponsor on receipt of a complaint, but there is no guaranteed response, no mandatory timeline, and no mechanism for the AG to award individual damages.

The CCNYC post on the May 2026 Fort Greene settlement covers this structural limit in detail: the AG's offering plan enforcement power runs against sponsors at the institutional level, not for unit owners individually. A buyer with a specific offering plan discrepancy should file a complaint with the REFB at CCNYC's AG complaint tool, with the understanding that the complaint opens an investigation, not a damages proceeding. The post on how to write an REFB complaint explains how to structure that filing to get a written response.

The gap that the enforcement period exposed sits adjacent to a broader disclosure gap documented at /issues/no-mandatory-financial-disclosure-to-buyers/: New York does not require any seller of a condo unit (other than a sponsor in an active offering) to provide the buyer with current financial disclosures about the building. The offering plan regime covers the initial sale from sponsor to first buyer. After that, the document goes into the REFB archive and the next buyer gets nothing unless they know to look.

Bottom line.

The REFB's COVID-era offering plan enforcement pause ran from March 2020 to July 1, 2026. Sponsors who did not update their plans during that window must now file a financial update amendment before selling any units. For buyers contracting after July 1, 2026, the offering plan should reflect current pricing and financials. For the buyers who transacted during the gap, the enforcement resumption does not create new remedies. The REFB database at offeringplan.datasearch.ag.ny.gov is the only public tool for checking whether the plan behind your building has been kept current. The AG's capacity to enforce the offering plan regime is real and worth using before you sign. What it cannot do, retroactively or going forward, is the same thing it has never been able to do: protect buyers from governance failures, mismanagement, or board overreach after the closing.

Primary sources:
AG REFB Policy Memorandum: Updated Submission and Review Policies (December 23, 2025)
NY General Business Law §352-e (Martin Act offering plan requirement)
13 NYCRR Part 20.5 (REFB amendment requirements)
REFB Offering Plan Database (offeringplan.datasearch.ag.ny.gov)

Companion resources: What the Martin Act can and cannot reach · Why the AG cannot help with most condo governance disputes · How to write an AG REFB complaint · NY LLC Transparency Act and sponsor disclosure · Why most sponsor LLCs are exempt from the transparency act · Issue: no mandatory financial disclosure to buyers · Issue: sponsor control period abuses · Draft your REFB complaint