The Governor signed into law on June 30, 2022, a change to the Real Property Laws that govern New York condominiums. Effective immediately, boards, in their “sole discretion”, irrespective of what the bylaws say, can decide to hold owners meetings solely or partially by “means of electronic communication”. The law says that “the platform/service” is the “place of the meeting” and that boards can decide to hold the owners’ meeting completely by means of electronic communication, or both at a physical place and also using a “platform/service” that allows means of electronic communication. in that case, the board would give the owners an option of participating at the physical place and/or electronically. The law is not effective retroactively. Electronic voting is certainly going to make a world of a difference in condominiums and achieving quorum may not be impossible anymore.

At the end of 2021, the New York Legislature changed the laws allowing business corporations (most coops) and not-for-profit corporations (most HOAs) to have virtual and electronic shareholder and member meetings. Those law changes went a bit further than this Real Property Law change. The BCL and NCL changes also provided that “[m]eetings conducted partially or solely by means of electronic communications in reliance upon this paragraph and any member’s electronic participation in such meetings shall be subject to those guidelines and procedures as the board adopts, provided the board shall implement reasonable measures to: (1) verify that each person participating electronically is a member or a proxy of a member; (2) provide each member participating electronically with a reasonable opportunity to participate in the meeting, including an opportunity to propose, object to, and vote upon a specific action to be taken by the members, and to see, read or hear the proceedings of the meeting substantially concurrently with those proceedings; and (3) record and maintain a record of any votes or other actions taken by electronic communication at the meeting. The law goes on to say that “‘reasonable measures’ with respect to participating in proceedings shall include, but not be
limited to, audio webcast or other broadcast of the meeting and for voting shall include but not be limited to telephonic and internet voting.”

So, unlike most coops and HOAs, condos arguably don’t have to satisfy these additional requirements that the lawmakers left out of the Real Property Law change.