Pressure Layer · Drafting

Start here — a letter to owners Nobody Is Checking Three sentences in your offering plan are true: no one is required to keep money aside for the roof, no one represents that the reserve is adequate, and no agency has reviewed it. Why that is, where the money goes, and why a million homeowners still have no caucus. →

10 bills, written to be introduced.

Each of these is a complete draft — a sponsor's memorandum, the operative bill text in legislative form, an explicit list of what it deliberately does not do, the open drafting questions a counsel's office would raise, and an appendix verifying every citation against a primary source.

10complete drafts
77citations verified
25errors corrected
63open questions, stated
0sponsors committed

Where each of these should actually go

Writing a good bill is the easy part. In the 2025 session New York introduced 16,794 bills and roughly 800 reached the Governor — about 4.8%. A new introduction starts at one-in-twenty, and the way to beat that is not a better draft. It is to attach to something already moving.

3

should ride a bill already in motion

These do not need a new introduction, a new sponsor, or a new committee fight. The vehicle has already cleared some of that.

  • S.7745 / A.10286 In Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development. Self-funded by a $6 annual per-unit residential fee rather than an appropriation. Sponsor Sen. Shelley B. Mayer (SD 37); same-as A.10286. Carries: Ninety-Day Resolution Act
  • S.8912 / A.10283 Passed Senate Corporations 2026-05-19 (6-1); committed to Rules 2026-06-05. Already requires competitive bidding with unredacted bids to directors above $50,000 in cooperative housing corporations. Carries: Owner Protections Act · Vendor Conflicts Act
7

cannot, and it matters why

"Fold where you can" is only useful advice if you are honest about how rarely you can. Each of these has to clear a companion recruitment, a committee chair, a fiscal referral and a Rules bottleneck from a standing start.

2 are New York City local laws
There is no state vehicle to ride — which is also their advantage: no companion requirement and no Finance referral.
4 sit in the wrong subject matter
Judiciary and General Business Law ground that no moving Housing bill covers. Attaching them would import a fight the host bill does not have.
1 should not be carried yet
Its architectural precedent was vetoed and the veto was allowed to stand.

The four structural reasons bills stall here — no companion means no Governor, a chair nobody can compel, a discharge motion New York restricts more than any other state, and a fiscal referral that has killed the same bill in nine consecutive sessions — are set out with sources in the choke-point analysis. Every draft below carries its own route and the reason for it.

What these are, and what they are not

They are not introduced bills. None carries a bill number, because none has been assigned. None names a sponsor as though one had agreed to carry it, because none has. Where a legislator is mentioned it is a verified fact about that legislator, not an endorsement of this text.

Every citation was verified on 2026-07-27. Where a citation in an earlier version could not be confirmed, it was removed rather than softened, and the removal is recorded in each document's correction table. 25 such corrections are recorded across these drafts, on top of the fourteen made across the wider model — including a proposed Real Property Law article that turned out to be the Solar Rights Act.

Each draft states what it gives up. Two of these were cut down hard from earlier versions: mechanisms that would not survive a committee reading were removed, and the reasoning is written into the document rather than left out of it.

NYC Council S09 S28 S29 S30 S52 Standalone — City Council No sponsor

Building Safety Integrity Act

The person who decides how much facade work your building needs should not be paid by the company that does it.

Requires a signed independence certification from the qualified exterior wall inspector and bars ownership, compensation, or performance of the resulting repair for three years; creates an administrative appeal from an unsafe condition designation without staying any safety obligation; permits consolidated filing where a building is subject to several periodic inspection cycles, on the shortest applicable cycle; requires reporting, lobby notice and publication of elevator outages over 48 hours with an accommodation duty in single-elevator buildings; and requires disclosure of known sidewalk vault conditions on transfer.

Amends
NYC Administrative Code (new sections 28-302.6, 28-302.7, 28-301.4, 28-304.4)
Committee
Committee on Housing and Buildings
Reaches
8 documented issues
Citations
7 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
0 made from the prior version
Open questions
7 stated in the document

Why standalone: Cannot fold — it is a New York City local law and there is no state vehicle to ride. That is also its advantage: no companion-bill requirement, no Finance referral, and a shorter path than anything in Albany.

Read the full draft →
NYC Council S06 S15 Standalone — City Council No sponsor

Condominium and Cooperative Resident Disclosure Act

One sign in the lobby telling owners where their building's public record lives.

Requires the board of a condominium or cooperative multiple dwelling to post a notice at each resident entrance identifying the form of ownership and stating where the building's city regulatory record and its Attorney General offering plan file may be obtained, in a form prescribed by HPD, enforced through the existing housing maintenance code civil penalty.

Amends
NYC Administrative Code (new § 27-2104.1)
Committee
Committee on Housing and Buildings
Reaches
17 documented issues
Citations
9 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
5 made from the prior version
Open questions
5 stated in the document

Why standalone: Cannot fold — a New York City local law. Its argument is that the Council already decided a lobby notice is the right instrument, in Local Law 86 of 2025, which is an extension of a decision already made rather than a new one.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S15 S43 Standalone — Albany No sponsor

Mixed-Income 421-a Affordability Disclosure Act

Tell the buyer what the unit will cost to carry after the tax exemption ends.

Requires every offering plan for a building receiving a section 421-a exemption to contain a Post-Abatement Carrying Cost Projection covering each year of the exemption and the ten years following it, per income tier, with an Affordability Cliff Notice where projected carrying cost exceeds forty percent of tier-median income, and a right of rescission for non-disclosure.

Amends
General Business Law (new § 352-e-1); Real Property Law (new § 339-ii-1)
Committee
Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development / Assembly Housing
Reaches
18 documented issues
Citations
6 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
6 made from the prior version
Open questions
5 stated in the document

Why standalone: Cannot fold. It amends the General Business Law offering-plan regime and touches 421-a; no moving vehicle covers that ground, and attaching it to one would import a 421-a fight into a bill that does not have one.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S02 S04 S12 S24 Ride a moving vehicle No sponsor

Common Interest Community Ombudsperson and Expedited Resolution Act

Ninety days to a decision — and the side that stalls loses on the record the other side put in.

Establishes a fee-funded Office of the Common Interest Community Ombudsperson and an expedited procedure for enumerated owner-association disputes: a fixed 90-day schedule from filing to determination, submission windows binding on both parties, determination on the record actually submitted where a party does not answer, reopening for excusable neglect, a $15,000 cap, enforcement as a judgment, and article 78 review. Designed against the fiscal-committee record that killed nine prior ombudsperson bills.

Amends
Real Property Law (new article and section); CPLR (exhaustion and article 78 review)
Committee
Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development; Senate Finance
Reaches
16 documented issues
Citations
9 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
0 made from the prior version
Open questions
7 stated in the document

Ride S.7745 / A.10286: Nine consecutive ombudsperson bills since 2009 have each died in Finance. A tenth introduction repeats the experiment. Amending the live vehicle keeps the sponsor, keeps the fee-funding that answers the revenue side, and adds the savings argument none of the nine carried.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S18 S49 S53 Standalone — Albany No sponsor

Condominium and Cooperative Fraud Prevention and Recovery Act

Two of the four deed-theft remedies New York already enacted, extended to buildings.

Permits the Attorney General to file a notice of pendency on probable cause of a criminal offense involving condominium or cooperative funds, and creates a rebuttable presumption, upon felony conviction for misappropriating such funds, that transactions the convicted party caused the association to enter during the offense period were not entered in good faith.

Amends
CPLR 6501; Real Property Law (new § 339-ii-2)
Committee
Senate Judiciary / Assembly Judiciary
Reaches
8 documented issues
Citations
10 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
7 made from the prior version
Open questions
5 stated in the document

Why standalone: Cannot fold. It amends the CPLR and creates an evidentiary presumption — Judiciary subject matter with no Housing vehicle to ride. Its argument is that the Legislature already enacted this architecture in Chapter 630 of 2023, which is a standalone argument.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S17 S18 Hold No sponsor

Sponsor Unit Owner Opportunity to Purchase Act

When a sponsor sells its retained block, the building's own owners get told first and get to match.

Requires 120 days' notice to the board and every unit owner before a sponsor transfers ten percent or more of aggregate common interest in a single transaction or coordinated series, and gives the board, then unit owners representing twenty-five percent of common interest, a defined period to purchase on the same terms as the third-party offer.

Amends
Real Property Law (new § 339-ii-3)
Committee
Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development / Assembly Housing
Reaches
12 documented issues
Citations
4 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
7 made from the prior version
Open questions
6 stated in the document

Why standalone: Should not be carried yet. Its architectural precedent was vetoed and the veto was allowed to stand, in a city more favourable to the measure than Albany. Sever the notice requirement and carry that first; the purchase right can follow once notice is law.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S20 S39 S40 S19 Ride a moving vehicle No sponsor

Everyday Owner Protections Act

Publish the fees, adopt them properly, apply the rules the same way to everyone, answer on a clock.

Requires a published schedule of every fee other than common charges, maintenance, assessments and taxes, adoption by the procedure the governing documents prescribe, a cost-relatedness standard for administrative processing fees, and a bar on charging unpublished fees; requires a transfer fee to identify its authorizing instrument and be disclosed before contract; requires sublet restrictions to be properly adopted and uniformly applied with a 30-day decision deadline; and deems a right of first refusal waived if not exercised within 30 days or closed within 60.

Amends
Real Property Law (new sections 339-ll-1 through 339-ll-4); BCL section 501
Committee
Senate Judiciary / Assembly Housing
Reaches
8 documented issues
Citations
5 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
0 made from the prior version
Open questions
7 stated in the document

Ride S.8912 / A.10283: These provisions overlap what S.8912 already does for cooperatives, and that bill has already been voted out of committee. Introducing a competing fee-and-disclosure bill would split the constituency for a provision that has already won its committee vote.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S03 S12 S21 S22 S47 Standalone — Albany No sponsor

Owner Standing and Enforcement Act

New York already tells boards what they must do. This is how an owner makes them do it.

Creates a cause of action for a unit owner or shareholder to enforce five enumerated statutory duties, with costs and reasonable attorneys' fees to a prevailing owner and a bad-faith exception running the other way; bars retaliation with a six-month rebuttable presumption; codifies a fiduciary exception to the attorney-client privilege for advice on association administration with an adverse-litigation carve-out; and protects good-faith reports to a public agency.

Amends
Real Property Law (new sections 339-jj-1 through 339-jj-4)
Committee
Senate Judiciary / Assembly Judiciary
Reaches
15 documented issues
Citations
9 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
0 made from the prior version
Open questions
6 stated in the document

Why standalone: Cannot fold. It amends enforcement machinery and belongs in Judiciary rather than Housing, and it carries the highest opposition intensity in the model. Putting the most contested provision in the set inside a bill that is currently moving would likely stop that bill.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S01 S07 S50 S57 S60 S61 Standalone — Albany No sponsor

Common Interest Community Registry and Oversight Division Act

New York cannot regulate what it cannot address. This builds the list.

Establishes a Common Interest Community Division within the Department of State, expressly barred from adjudicating disputes or directing internal governance; requires annual registration by each residential condominium and cooperative with a defined public subset of fields; funds it by a fee capped at $3 per unit per year with no general fund appropriation; conditions the RPTL 467-a abatement on current registration with 90 days notice to the association and each affected owner and retroactive restoration where the owner was not at fault; and requires the Attorney General to publish an offering plan and amendment docket. Also requires every offering plan and annual owner statement to express the reserve balance as a percentage of what a credentialed reserve study recommends, or state that no study exists, with an express disclaimer that the State determines nothing about adequacy; and requires HPD to publish, by building, whether a converting sponsor filed the post-closing amendment evidencing that the NYC reserve fund was funded and transferred.

Amends
Real Property Law (new article); RPTL § 467-a; General Business Law (new § 352-e-2)
Committee
Senate Housing, Construction and Community Development; Senate Finance
Reaches
14 documented issues
Citations
12 verified 2026-07-29
Corrections
0 made from the prior version
Open questions
9 stated in the document

Why standalone: Cannot fold. It creates an office and conditions a tax abatement, so it draws a fiscal referral no moving vehicle would want attached to it. It is also a prerequisite for other mechanisms, which means it needs its own timeline rather than a host bill's.

Read the full draft →
State Senate & Assembly S08 S11 Ride a moving vehicle No sponsor

Vendor Conflicts and Competitive Bidding Act

Stop the person who picks the building's vendors from being paid by them.

Requires annual signed disclosure by managing agents, their responsible principals and employees, and board members of any compensation from or ownership interest in a vendor; prohibits undisclosed compensation; requires recusal; makes a contract entered in violation voidable at the association's election with an accounting. Requires competitive bidding above the greater of $25,000 or 2 percent of operating budget, a six-year bid file, and availability of that file to owners within ten business days.

Amends
Real Property Law (new sections 339-kk-1, 339-kk-2)
Committee
Senate Judiciary / Assembly Housing
Reaches
10 documented issues
Citations
6 verified 2026-07-27
Corrections
0 made from the prior version
Open questions
6 stated in the document

Ride S.8912 / A.10283: The bidding half belongs in S.8912, which already carries the mechanism: extend it to condominiums, scale the threshold, and send the bid file to owners. The vendor-compensation prohibition is a new prohibition and must wait — adding it to a bill sitting in Rules would reopen a bill that has already been voted.

Read the full draft →

These drafts sit inside a larger model of 61 legislative mechanisms mapped to 81 documented failures. The model shows which mechanism each draft delivers, what else would be needed to close the issue completely, and what New York's live bills already cover.