NY's condo ombudsman bill did not advance for the second consecutive session.

NY Senate S7745, introduced by Senator Mayer on May 2, 2025, and referred to the Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development on January 7, 2026, would have created, to our knowledge, the state's first independent dispute-resolution program for owners and shareholders in New York's 15,108 condo and co-op buildings. The bill was funded by a $6-per-unit annual fee, deposited into a dedicated state fund under DHCR oversight. Albany adjourned in June 2026 without bringing it to a floor vote or scheduling a committee hearing. A predecessor bill, S6242, produced the same result in the 2023-2024 session. Two sessions, two bills, no floor vote.

What S7745 would have built.

The bill amends three state statutes: the Public Housing Law, the Real Property Law, and the State Finance Law. The program it creates within DHCR has four defined functions. First: owner education, giving condo and co-op shareholders and unit owners an accessible resource for understanding their legal rights under existing law. Second: mediation and alternative dispute resolution, providing a structured and lower-cost path to resolving governance disagreements before owners reach civil court. Third: board election monitoring, offering a neutral oversight mechanism for contested board elections where no independent body currently exists. Fourth: a statewide registry of cooperative and condominium properties, making that data publicly accessible through a state system for the first time.

The administration structure is designed to avoid direct political appointment. DHCR would select a not-for-profit organization through competitive bidding to operate the program; DHCR retains oversight without day-to-day control. The $6 annual fee per residential unit goes into a dedicated special revenue fund under the State Finance Law, separating the program's finances from general appropriations and removing it from annual budget negotiation.

The fee math is simple. A 100-unit building contributes $600 per year. That fee, applied across the estimated residential units in New York's condo and co-op buildings, is enough to staff a small administrative office, contract a panel of trained mediators, and operate the statewide registry database. The annual cost to any individual unit owner is smaller than a single month of standard co-op parking.

Two sessions, two bills, the same committee.

S7745 is the 2025-2026 reintroduction of an idea the prior session also produced. The 2023-2024 version, S6242, placed the ombudsperson office within the Department of Law rather than DHCR. The shift in administrative home reflects feedback received between sessions: housing dispute functions map more naturally to DHCR, which already oversees rent stabilization compliance and affordable housing programs, than to the AG's office, which operates under a separate statutory mandate focused on financial disclosure and fraud in the presale period.

S6242 was referred to committee in the 2023-2024 session and received no floor vote. S7745 was introduced on May 2, 2025, referred to the Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development on January 7, 2026, and received no scheduled hearing before the session closed in June 2026. An Assembly companion, A10286, was introduced in the same session and reached the same outcome.

What the public record shows about the two-session outcome is notable for what it does not contain. No fiscal note challenged the $6 fee as financially unsound. No committee voted the bill down in either session. No legislator offered a floor statement against it. No industry organization published testimony opposing the mediation or registry provisions. The bill was held in committee and expired at adjournment, the standard outcome for bills that enter committee without a scheduled hearing and without organized legislative leadership support.

What states with programs actually built.

Two states offer the most direct comparisons: Nevada, which has operated a common-interest community ombudsman since 1997, and Virginia, whose program at DPOR received 5,391 owner contacts in its most recently reported year. As this site has documented in detail, both states also require managing-agent licensure, which New York does not. The ombudsperson is a parallel and separate function: it does not replace licensing, does not supervise managing agents, and does not impose fines. It provides information, mediates disputes when both parties agree, and monitors board elections on request. The table below shows what each state built against what S7745 proposed.

Neither program eliminates governance disputes. Both reduce the number that require civil litigation to resolve by providing a low-cost first step. That is the function S7745 would have added to New York's governance architecture. Instead, owners in New York whose managing agent will not produce financial records, or whose board election produced a contested result, face the same two options they faced before either session considered the bill: retain an attorney or accept the outcome.

Why the ombudsperson is not the AG.

The recurring misreading of this gap is that the AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau is the relevant alternative. The REFB's jurisdiction, defined by the Martin Act and Real Property Law Section 352-eeee, covers offering-plan misrepresentations by sponsors in the presale period. It does not cover post-closing governance: whether a board followed its own bylaws, whether a managing agent self-dealt with vendors, whether a board election met quorum under the building's governing documents. The REFB is structurally incapable of those disputes — not unwilling, but without statutory authority to take them on, as this site has explained at length.

The June 2026 illustration is concrete. The AG filed its first-ever rent stabilization compliance lawsuits under Executive Law Section 63(12), a consumer-protection authority that exists in statute and that the REFB does not possess for condo and co-op board conduct. The AG can use what the legislature gave it; it cannot reach what the legislature did not. That line fell clearly in June.

An ombudsperson does not extend the AG's reach into governance disputes. It operates outside the AG's office and outside the court system entirely. It answers questions, provides information, and in cases where both parties agree, offers a trained mediator. It does not issue binding orders or assess penalties. It is what most governance frameworks put between "do nothing" and "file suit." New York's framework skips that layer.

What S.71 covers that S7745 does not, and vice versa.

S.71, the managing-agent licensure bill that has not advanced in ten consecutive sessions, addresses the credential gap: no minimum training, no registration requirement, no disciplinary body with jurisdiction over the persons managing New York's buildings. S7745 addresses a different gap. A licensed managing agent is not an ombudsperson. Licensure creates a credential and a revocable registration; documented misconduct can result in the registration being pulled. But it does not give a unit owner a neutral forum for a governance dispute, and it does not create a structured path to resolution short of terminating the agent or filing in court.

The two bills are complementary, not interchangeable. S.71 addresses who can manage a building and under what accountability standard. S7745 addresses where owners go when something goes wrong under whichever managing agent is already in place. Both gaps remain open. S.71 has a ten-session history of referral without a vote. S7745 is two sessions into the same pattern, with an Assembly companion and no recorded opposition to show for it. The next opportunity is the 2027 legislative session, which opens in January.

Bottom line.

S7745 is a small bill. It creates an information resource and a mediation pathway, funded by $6 per residential unit per year, administered by a contracted not-for-profit under state oversight. It would do what Nevada has done since 1997 and what Virginia has done since 2008. Two consecutive sessions produced two referrals to committee and no floor vote.

The owners who need what S7745 would build already know that the AG cannot help them with governance disputes, that civil litigation costs more than most amounts in dispute, and that their managing agent holds no credential any state body can revoke. For those owners, the absence of an ombudsperson is not abstract — it is the end of the options list. The 2027 session opens in January.

Primary sources: NY Senate S7745 (2025-2026) · NY Senate S6242 (2023-2024) · NY Assembly A10286 (2025-2026)

Companion resources: Albany's four reform bills with no vote · Why the AG can't help with governance disputes · AG enforcement: what it can and can't reach · Nevada's licensing and ombudsman model · Virginia's licensing and ombudsman model · S.71: the managing-agent licensure bill · All documented governance gaps · Write to your representative