LEGISLATIVE RECORD
The Legislative
Graveyard.
Every meaningful condo and co-op governance reform bill introduced in New York over the past two decades has stalled. Same bills. Same sponsors. Same committees. Same outcome. This is the public record of what was tried — and how each attempt ended. Where we learn why, we will publish it.
Editorial standard. Every entry on this page is sourced from publicly available legislative records (nysenate.gov, nyassembly.gov), trade press coverage (Habitat Magazine, CooperatorNews, Crain's, The Real Deal, City & State), and on-record industry statements. Nothing on this page alleges a criminal act. We document what is in the public record: bills that were filed, hearings that were not scheduled, sponsors who withdrew, lobbying positions made publicly, and votes that did or did not happen. Where commentary appears, it is attributed to its published source. Where conclusions are ours, they are clearly framed as such.
CASE FILE 01 · NINE SESSIONS
The Cooperative & Condominium Ombudsperson Program
What it would do: Create a state body where condo and co-op disputes go instead of civil court. Mediation, election monitoring, vote counting, owner education, public hearings. Funded by a $6/year per-unit assessment. Patterned on Florida's DBPR Division of Condominiums, Nevada's Ombudsman for Common-Interest Communities, and similar bodies in Virginia, Connecticut, and Hawaii.
Lead sponsor (consistently): State Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan, Chair of Senate Finance), co-sponsored most sessions by Asm. Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan). 2025-2026 Senate sponsor is Sen. Shelley Mayer.
| # | Session | Senate | Assembly | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2009-2010 | S7958 | — | Held in Senate Finance Committee. Never reported out. |
| 2 | 2011-2012 | S395 | A6941 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 3 | 2013-2014 | S3152 | A34 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 4 | 2015-2016 | S2832 | A1855 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 5 | 2017-2018 | S5839 | A11109 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 6 | 2019-2020 | S2604 | A1482 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 7 | 2021-2022 | S494 | A3157 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 8 | 2023-2024 | S6242 | A745 | Held in committee. Never reached floor. |
| 9 | 2025-2026 | S7745 | A10286 | Currently pending. Same bill, same chamber, same committee that has not advanced it in eight prior sessions. |
Nine introductions. Zero hearings. Zero floor votes. Zero law.
What the trade press has said
- Habitat Magazine, March 2011 — Debating the Big O: described the bill as "controversial" and noted opposition from real-estate trade groups arguing the office would create "another layer of bureaucracy" while supporters argued it would give residents the only neutral forum that exists. The opposition position prevailed every session since.
- Habitat Magazine, December 2010 — Co-op / Condo Ombudsman Bill Making Its Way through State Senate: documented the bill clearing initial Senate review in 2010 — and going no further.
Documented industry positions opposing the bill
- Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) has historically opposed governance-reform legislation that would create state oversight of property managers. Per Habitat (2007), REBNY's position has been that managing agents are "capable of monitoring themselves."
- Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums (CNYC) has on-record opposed the per-unit funding mechanism in published board-talk forums.
- Multiple managing-agent trade publications have characterized the bill as "burdensome" and "unnecessary" in editorial coverage — see CooperatorNews archive.
How legislation moves in Albany
Influence in Albany operates through committee-scheduling authority, leadership-set session priorities, coordinated trade-group testimony, long-standing donor-network and staff relationships, and the revolving door between committee service and trade-association employment. None of that is illegal. All of it is documentable through public records. What we are pointing to is not a conspiracy — it is a process outcome: a bill that would give New York condo and co-op residents the dispute-resolution body that residents of Florida, Nevada, Virginia, Connecticut, and Hawaii already have has been introduced in New York for nine consecutive sessions and has never received a single floor vote. The reasons that pattern persists are knowable through public records: committee scheduling decisions, lobby-disclosure filings (COELIG / formerly JCOPE), campaign-finance filings, and on-record industry positions. We will continue to publish what those records show.
CASE FILE 02 · 58–1, STALLED IN ONE COMMITTEE MEETING
Co-op & Condo Transparency Act (2025)
What it would do: Require condo and co-op boards to maintain and provide unit owners and prospective purchasers with engineering reports, building permits, and inspection records — both digitally and physically. Standardized records. Standardized delivery. Penalty mechanism: the Attorney General would reserve authority to void offering plans for non-compliance.
The trade press response
Habitat Magazine, June 2025 — Co-op and Condo Advocates Cheer Demise of Transparency Bill: the headline itself is the documentary record. Industry advocates characterized the bill's death as a victory and the AG-enforcement provision as the trigger that prompted Rosenthal's withdrawal.
What this case tells us
Even when reform legislation clears one chamber by a near-unanimous margin, a single committee in the other chamber — and a single sponsor's decision to withdraw from her own bill — is sufficient to end it that session. There is no procedure to discharge the bill from committee against the sponsor's wishes. The Senate's 58–1 vote produced no law.
CASE FILE 03 · IN MOTHBALLS SINCE 2007
Managing Agent Licensure
What it would do: Require state licensure for managing agents operating residential condominium and cooperative buildings — analogous to what New York requires of barbers, cosmetologists, real estate brokers, and home inspectors. License revocation would create the first administrative consequence for misconduct.
The on-record industry position
Per Habitat Magazine reporting cited in 2007 — Are managing agents licensed? — the Real Estate Board of New York's position is that managing agents are "capable of monitoring themselves." Multiple licensure proposals have been discussed in Albany since the early 2000s. None has reached a committee vote in the Senate or Assembly Housing Committees in nearly two decades.
Comparison with what New York already licenses
- Barbers, cosmetologists, nail technicians (NY DOS Division of Licensing)
- Real estate brokers and salespersons
- Home inspectors
- Notaries public
- Auctioneers, bingo operators, and cemetery operators
New York requires a state license to braid hair. It does not require one to manage a $200 million residential building.
CASE FILE 04 · POST-SURFSIDE NOT FOLLOWED
Mandatory Reserve Fund Legislation
What it would do: Require condo and co-op buildings to commission professional reserve studies on a defined cycle and maintain reserves at a statutory minimum percentage of replacement cost. Patterned on Florida SB 4-D, enacted after the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside killed 98 people in June 2021.
New York reserve-fund proposals have been introduced in multiple sessions, including S7600 / A8945 in the 2025-2026 session. As of publication, no NY reserve-mandate bill has reached a committee vote in either chamber. New York continues to set no statutory minimum reserve fund requirement for condo or co-op buildings.
What other states require
- Florida (SB 4-D, 2022): Mandatory structural integrity reserve studies for buildings 3+ stories, full reserve funding for structural components, ban on board waiver of reserve contributions.
- California (Civil Code §5550): Reserve study every 3 years, summary distributed annually to all owners.
- Nevada (NRS 116.31152): Reserve studies and funding mandates.
- Hawaii, Virginia, Massachusetts, Washington: All have some form of reserve study or funding requirement.
- New York: None.
CASE FILE 05 · TEN-PLUS YEARS, NO HEARING
Co-op Rejection-Reason Disclosure Bill
What it would do: Require co-op boards to provide a prospective purchaser with a written statement of reasons whenever the board withholds consent to the sale. Decision must be in writing, delivered within 30 days. The closest thing co-op buyers have to anti-discrimination enforcement against opaque board rejections — which Federal HUD disparate-impact analyses and a long line of trade-press investigations (The Real Deal, Brick Underground, Gothamist) have repeatedly flagged as the mechanism through which discrimination operates without ever being named.
Lead sponsor (consistently): Sen. James Sanders, Jr. (D-Queens), with various Assembly co-sponsors across sessions.
Bill numbers across sessions
- 2015: A6705
- 2016: S6439 / A6705
- 2017: S4551
- 2018: S4551 / A10216
- 2019-2020: S2124
- 2021-2022: S1449A — referred to Senate Codes & Assembly Governmental Operations
- 2023-2024: Reintroduced (covered by The Real Deal, Feb 2023)
- 2025-2026: S6346 / A7803
What the trade press has documented
The Real Deal, May 2021 — Inside New York City Co-op Discrimination: a long-form investigation into the patterns the bill is designed to address. Gothamist: Many Manhattan Councilmembers Silent on Bill — documented the political cost legislators face for supporting the bill in their own districts.
CASE FILE 06 · WHAT WOULD HAVE STOPPED THE \$80,000 SURPRISE
Residential Condominium Owner's Bill of Rights
What it would do: Require the board to obtain unit-owner approval before entering into contracts for "extraordinary expenses" — defined as capital projects beyond normal operating maintenance — except where the work is genuinely an emergency or required for refinancing the mortgage. This is the bill that would have prevented the $30,000– $80,000 special-assessment shocks that Habitat, CooperatorNews, and our own forensic case studies have documented across NYC condos for years.
Lead sponsors: Sen. Luis Sepúlveda (D-Bronx), Sen. John Liu (D-Queens), Sen. Jessica Ramos (D-Queens), with Assembly companions.
Bill numbers across sessions
Every session, this bill is referred to committee. Every session, it stalls there. Meanwhile, the assessments continue, owner-vote requirement or not.
CASE FILE 07 · A LOBBYING VICTORY ON THE PUBLIC RECORD
The Good Cause Eviction Carve-Out
What happened: When New York's Good Cause Eviction law passed in the April 2024 state budget, condominiums and cooperatives were excluded from coverage — meaning unit owners and shareholders facing eviction or share-cancellation proceedings continue to operate outside the new framework. An earlier draft of the bill had included co-ops and condos as covered housing accommodations.
The lobby win, in their own words
Habitat Magazine, April 2024 — New York Passes Good Cause Eviction Bill, Excludes Co-Ops and Condos documented that the Queens-based Presidents Co-op & Condo Council (PCCC) publicly characterized the carve-out as "a substantial victory." PCCC stated that in the previous version of the bill, co-ops and condos were included as a covered housing accommodation, and that "legislators failed to recognize the distinction between a co-op and a landlord-tenant rental relationship." The carve-out followed coordinated lobbying by PCCC, the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums (CNYC), and allied trade groups.
Why this case matters
This is not an inferred lobbying win. It is a self-described lobbying win, published in the trade press, attributed by name to the trade groups that organized it. We do not have to allege or imply influence — the parties responsible publicly took credit. It is the cleanest case study available of how the policy outcomes for one million-plus New York condo and co-op residents are shaped by a small number of organized industry voices acting in concert.
When the people who lobbied to exclude you from a tenant protection publish a press release celebrating it, the public record is doing the work for us.
PUBLIC RECORD CONTEXT
Where the disclosure trail leads
We do not allege that any specific legislator has been compensated to oppose any specific bill. We do publish — and intend to continue publishing — what is already on the public record:
- Lobby spending. NY's Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (COELIG, formerly JCOPE) maintains a public lobbying registry. Real-estate-industry spending on Albany lobbying — including spending by REBNY, NYAR, and large managing-agent trade groups — is a matter of public filing. We will publish year-over-year totals alongside the bill activity calendar as that data is processed.
- Campaign contributions. The NY State Board of Elections Campaign Finance system is searchable. Cross-referencing top campaign donors to each Housing Committee chair against the donor's industry affiliation is a public-records exercise, not an accusation.
- Revolving-door employment. When a former legislator who chaired the committee where reform legislation stalled later takes a position with a real-estate trade association, that is a documentable employment fact — searchable via LinkedIn, press releases, and tax filings.
- Committee scheduling. Whether a bill ever received a hearing — and on whose authority a hearing was or was not scheduled — is in the public legislative record. So is the identity of the chair making that decision.
None of these are allegations. They are public records. We are publishing the records.
If you have first-hand knowledge
of how a bill stalled, send it.
We accept on-record statements, off-record corroboration with attribution to a position rather than a name, and primary documents (committee correspondence, lobbying invoices, public meeting minutes). Every submission is reviewed by an editor before publication. Nothing is published without source documentation.