Governor Kathy Hochul has signed a bill that exempts cooperatives from the restrictions in the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act. The law inadvertently lumped coop boards with commercial landlords because of the tenant-landlord relationship that exists in housing cooperatives.

Coop boards can once again collect more than one month’s maintenance as security deposit. Coops historically required some purchasers with marginal financial profiles to escrow several months of maintenance as a condition for the coop board’s consent to the purchase.

Because the law is no longer applicable to coops, coop boards can charge more than the the $50 cap on late fees and allows coop boards to impose late fees equal to 8% of the monthly maintenance. The $20 cap on application fees has also been removed, allowing coop boards to charge appropriate fees for background, credit and criminal history checks, as well as transfer agent fees. Most importantly perhaps, coop boards can now collect legal fees, late fees and other charges from proprietary shareholders.