Manhattan luxury co-ops outsold new-development condos last week. Buyers have no statutory right to the books before signing.

In the seven days ending August 17, 2026, Olshan Realty's weekly luxury market report counted 12 Manhattan co-op contracts above $4 million against 10 new-development condo contracts. It was the first week since September 2022 in which co-ops outsold condos in the luxury tier. The shift has been building: prewar co-ops gained share in Manhattan's $2-million-and-above market for the first time since the pandemic, rising from 20.3 percent of luxury closings in 2024 to 22.7 percent in 2025. The median Manhattan co-op sale price reached $895,000 in the second quarter of 2026, up 8.5 percent year over year. The median condo figure rose 2.9 percent. The buyer of any one of those co-op contracts has no statutory right to see the building's reserve fund balance or audited financial statements before the board votes.

Prewar co-ops are outpacing new-development condos in the luxury tier.

Olshan Realty has published a weekly Manhattan luxury contract report for more than a decade. The report counts every contract signed on a residential unit priced at $4 million or above. The week ending August 17 is not a one-week anomaly: the Habitat Magazine July/August 2026 issue reports that co-op sales volume has risen while post-2000 condo volume has slipped across multiple quarters, and that co-ops reduced their time on market by a wider margin than post-2000 condos over the past two years. Forbes noted in August 2026 that prewar co-ops appreciated slightly faster than post-2000 condos between 2019 and 2025.

Several factors contributed. Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-03, effective August 3, 2026, eliminated the limited-review path for established condo and co-op projects and required full project underwriting for any mortgage in a building with more than ten units. Some new-development condo buildings that previously qualified for streamlined approval now face a more demanding lender review. Prewar co-ops, which already operated under a strict board approval process and tended to maintain lower loan-to-value ratios, were less affected by that change. The result is that the asset class carrying the city's weakest pre-purchase disclosure protections is now the fastest-appreciating segment in the luxury tier.

What New York law gives a co-op resale buyer before the board votes.

New York Real Property Law §461(5) defines "Residential real property" — the category the Act's disclosure obligations attach to — as a one- to four-family dwelling used or occupied as a home, and states the term shall not refer to "condominium units or cooperative apartments." The Property Condition Disclosure Act, enacted in 2002, requires sellers of covered residential real property to answer 48 questions about the property's physical condition, flood history, and material defects before the buyer signs a contract. Co-op and condo units fall outside that statutory definition. Their sellers carry no disclosure obligation under the Act.

That exemption means a co-op seller is not required under state law to disclose anything about the physical condition of the apartment, the condition of the building's common areas, the reserve fund balance, any pending special assessments, any active board litigation, or any deferred maintenance the board has identified. The statute's disclosure obligations do not reach the cooperative corporation at all. They reach only the seller of the individual unit, and the seller has no statutory obligation to produce that information either.

New York Real Property Law §339-w gives condominium unit owners the right to inspect the condominium association's books and records of account, minutes of meetings, and list of unit owners. That right belongs to unit owners. A prospective buyer who has not yet purchased a unit is not a unit owner. RPL §339-w does not give a buyer in due diligence the right to demand the association's financial records.

Why BCL §624 doesn't help a buyer who is not yet a shareholder.

Business Corporation Law §624 gives shareholders of a New York corporation the right to inspect the minutes of shareholder proceedings and the record of shareholders during normal business hours, upon at least five days' written demand. A shareholder who has held shares for at least six months, or who holds at least five percent of any class of shares, may also obtain the corporation's preceding fiscal year financial statements and any interim financial statements distributed to shareholders.

Purchasing a co-op apartment requires board approval. The board reviews the buyer's financial package, may conduct an interview, and then votes. If the board approves, the sale closes, the buyer receives a proprietary lease and a stock certificate, and the buyer becomes a shareholder. BCL §624 applies from that moment forward.

Before the board votes, the buyer is not a shareholder. During the period when the buyer most needs financial information about the cooperative corporation, when deciding whether to sign a contract, deposit ten percent, and submit a board package, BCL §624 does not give them the right to demand the corporation's books. The statute's inspection right is, by its terms, a right that attaches after the purchase is complete.

In practice, many managing agents include the most recent audited financials and board meeting minutes in the package of documents they send to the buyer's attorney. Some provide a reserve fund summary. Whether a buyer gets any of those documents depends entirely on the managing agent's standard practice and the seller's attorney's diligence in requesting them. There is no obligation. The managing agent who decides what to share needs no state license. New York's managing agent licensure bill, S.71 (Kavanagh), has not received a committee hearing in ten consecutive sessions.

The City Council heard a companion financial disclosure bill. It was not scheduled for a vote.

Local Law 58 of 2026, which took effect July 28, gives co-op purchase applicants a fifteen-day acknowledgment clock and a forty-five-day decision clock once the board package is complete, with HPD enforcement and fines starting at $1,000 per violation for co-ops with more than ten residential units. The law established timelines. It did not establish a disclosure floor.

The Housing and Buildings Committee received a companion bill during the same legislative cycle. That bill would have required boards to produce the building's most recent audited financial statements, reserve fund study, and capital plan to any purchase applicant who reached the board-approval stage, before the applicant signed a contract. The companion bill was not scheduled for a full Council vote. It is not listed as active in the current session.

Intro 0774-2026, the Fair Residential Cooperative Disclosure Law, would require co-op boards to give any rejected applicant a written explanation of the rejection within five calendar days of the denial. As of August 2026, the bill has received a committee hearing. No floor vote has been scheduled. Westchester County has required a written rejection reason from co-op boards since its 2021 co-op disclosure amendment took effect. New York City has no equivalent.

What Fannie Mae now verifies that New York law doesn't require sellers to disclose.

Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-03, effective August 3, 2026, eliminated the limited-review path for established condo and co-op projects and required every mortgage on a building with more than ten units to go through full project review. That review requires the lender to confirm several conditions that New York law does not require sellers to address:

• The master insurance policy meets Fannie's replacement-cost coverage standard.
• No special assessment for structural or safety work is pending or was levied in the prior twelve months without full collection.
• Unfunded critical-component repair needs do not exceed $10,000 per unit.
• The building does not appear on Fannie Mae's ineligible project list.

The lender's full-review process surfaces what the seller's disclosure framework does not require. If a building has carried a deferred facade repair for twelve years and has no funded reserve, the lender's review finds it. The buyer who cannot get conventional financing on that building has lost something material. New York law did not require the seller to say so in advance.

At least 66 New York City co-op and condo buildings appeared on Fannie Mae's unavailable list as of August 2026. A buyer who closes on a unit in one of those buildings without conventional financing, either because they pay cash or use a portfolio loan, loses the secondary-market protections that come with a Fannie-conforming loan. No state statute requires the seller to disclose the building's unavailable status before the buyer signs. For that gap, see When your building loses conventional financing, New York doesn't require your seller to tell you.

Bottom line.

Manhattan prewar co-ops are now the fastest-appreciating residential segment in the city's luxury tier, outselling new-development condos above $4 million for the first time since September 2022. The statutory framework around buying one has not changed. A buyer signing a $4 million co-op contract has no right under New York law to the building's reserve fund balance, audited financial statements, pending assessments, or engineering history before the board votes. A buyer of a new-development condo at a lower price point receives an AG-reviewed offering plan containing all of those items. The price protection is inverted: the least-regulated transaction type is now the most expensive. The gap is not a product of any individual seller's conduct. It is the architecture New York built when it enacted the Property Condition Disclosure Act in 2002 and wrote co-ops and condos out of it.

Primary sources: NY Real Property Law §461 (PCDA cooperative and condominium exemption); NY Business Corporation Law §624 (shareholder inspection rights); NY Real Property Law §339-w (condo unit owner inspection rights); Fannie Mae LL-2026-03 (full project review requirements, effective August 3, 2026); Olshan Realty luxury market report, week ending August 17, 2026; Habitat Magazine, July/August 2026 issue (prewar co-op market share data).

Companion resources: NYC gave co-op buyers a deadline. It did not give them the books · What NYC condo and co-op owners can legally demand from the board · When your building loses conventional financing, New York doesn't require your seller to tell you · New York mandates flood disclosure. Co-op and condo buyers are exempt · Why the NY AG can't help with most condo governance disputes · CCNYC tools · Regulatory gap inventory