LEGISLATIVE GRAVEYARD
Ten reforms to condo and co-op governance. Six are stalled in Albany committees — managing-agent licensure has sat for nine straight sessions. Two became law. Two have no bill at all. This is the public record, and every entry below links to its primary source.
This page is the record of what was tried. For what would actually close each gap — 61 mechanisms mapped to 81 documented failures, ranked and sequenced — and for the four bills we have drafted ourselves, start at the solutions model.
THE PATTERN
Reform is not absent because no one tried. The substantive condo/co-op governance bills follow a near-identical life cycle in Albany: a sponsor introduces the bill, it is referred to committee, the chair declines to schedule a vote, and it dies at the end of the session — usually without a recorded vote. Managing-agent certification has run this loop nine times since 2009.
But the record is not uniformly bleak. Two reforms here did pass — a deed-theft protection statute (2023) and a NYC co-op application-timeline law (2026) — which is exactly why we track them: they prove the path exists. Each bill below is paired, where applicable, with the corresponding regulatory gap on our issues page. For the editorial counterpart, see "New York's condo-reform record."
THE RECORD
Senator Brian Kavanagh · State Senate
Would require property managers of cooperatives and condominiums — and the firms employing them — to file a registration statement with the Secretary of State and obtain certification from an approved certifying organization.
Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal · Assembly
Would require annual financial statements to owners, disclosure of board self-dealing, and a right to inspect approved meeting minutes, financial records, bank statements, competitive bids over $5,000, and code-compliance inspection reports within 10 business days.
Assemblymember Karines Reyes / Senator Luis Sepúlveda · Assembly (A.5227) · Senate (S.5089)
Boards would have to put expense limits to a unit-owner vote at least once every five years; above those owner-set caps, the board could not enter contracts for extraordinary expenses without owner approval — except for genuine emergencies or mortgage refinancing.
Senator Siela A. Bynoe (Assembly companion A.8945) · State Senate / Assembly
Would direct condos and co-ops to complete a 30-year capital reserve study by a credentialed reserve specialist and file it with the Attorney General — a study-and-funding-plan mandate, not a statutory minimum reserve.
Assemblymember David Weprin · Assembly
Would classify certain owner-occupied co-ops and condos as NYC tax Class 1 for assessment purposes, moving them off the higher-effective-rate Class 2 treatment applied to multifamily property.
Senator Zellnor Myrie / Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes · State Senate (S.401) · Assembly (A.6100)
Would give tenants — and qualified nonprofits — a right of first offer or refusal to purchase their building (three or more units) before a third-party sale, with permanent-affordability restrictions.
Senator Brian Kavanagh (Sen. Zellnor Myrie co-sponsor) · State Senate
Amended the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law to add protections for victims of real-property theft, including mechanisms to challenge fraudulent title transfers and a rebuttable presumption of fraud following a related criminal conviction.
Council Member Amanda C. Farías · NYC Council
Cooperative corporations with more than 10 units must acknowledge a purchase or transfer application within 15 days and decide within 45 days of a complete application. This is NOT managing-agent licensure — that vehicle is the state-level S.71.
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Would bar the Local Law 11 inspecting engineer of record from taking fees, referrals, or kickbacks from the contractor performing the remediation they specified.
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Would extend a sponsor's liability for offering-plan misrepresentations beyond the six-year breach-of-contract limitations period, which under existing case law runs from the sponsor's first closing.
HOW WE VERIFY
New York reassigns bill numbers every two-year session, so the same number is a different bill from one session to the next. Each entry here is pinned to the exact NY Senate or NYC Council Legistar page we verified it against — that is the "Verify at the source" link on each card. Where a reform has no bill, we say so plainly rather than attaching a number that would not survive a click.
We track reforms that reached at least a committee assignment in Albany or the NYC Council, plus documented gaps that have no bill yet. If you have firsthand knowledge of a reform bill not listed, tell us. We add primary-source citations and update.