Selling a co-op in Westchester is not the same transaction as selling a house, even when the apartment is in the same town and the buyer pays the same kind of price. You don't own the apartment. You own shares in the corporation that owns the building, plus a proprietary lease that lets you live in your unit, and the corporation's board gets a say in who buys those shares from you. That one difference changes the timeline, the paperwork, the costs and the kind of buyer who can realistically close.
Co-ops are a big part of Westchester's housing, from garden-apartment complexes in Yonkers and Hartsdale to older elevator buildings in White Plains and New Rochelle, and the county has its own law governing how co-op boards handle a buyer's application. Here is how a co-op sale actually works here, where it tends to stall, and what your options are if you need it sold.
A co-op sale transfers shares and a proprietary lease, not a deed, and the buyer must be approved by the co-op board. In Westchester, Section 700.21-a of the County Fair Housing Law gives the board 15 days to acknowledge a complete application or flag what is missing, and 60 days from a complete application to approve or reject it. A rejection must go out on the county's model form with the reason, and a copy goes to the county Human Rights Commission. Expect a possible flip tax set by your building's documents, New York's transfer tax on the shares, and any maintenance arrears or share loan paid off at closing.
How a co-op sale differs from selling a house
When you sell a house, you sign a deed and the buyer's title company insures it. When you sell a co-op, you sign over your stock certificate and assign your proprietary lease, and the managing agent and the co-op's attorney run their own process alongside the contract. In practice that means:
- The board approves the buyer. Your contract is subject to the board's consent, and the buyer submits a full application package: finances, tax returns, references and usually an interview.
- The building's documents set the rules. The proprietary lease, bylaws and house rules decide things like a flip tax, how much a buyer may finance, whether sublets are allowed and whether the board will accept a buyer that is a company rather than a person. Find your copies before you price anything.
- The managing agent is involved at every step. They prepare the application package, confirm the maintenance balance and issue the figures the closing attorneys need. Many charge their own processing fees.
- The disclosure form doesn't apply. New York's Property Condition Disclosure Statement exempts co-ops and condos. Our guide to New York's 2024 property disclosure law explains which transfers are covered. That does not make it safe to hide a known problem with the unit; ask your attorney what to tell a buyer.
- There is a lien search instead of a deed search. Because the shares are personal property, a co-op closing usually runs a lien search on the shares and the seller, and any share loan is paid off and its lien released at the closing table.
Westchester's co-op law: the board's clock
For a long time a co-op board anywhere in New York could sit on an application for months and reject it without saying why. Westchester changed that. Section 700.21-a of the Westchester County Fair Housing Law, as amended effective August 1, 2021 and enforced by the county Human Rights Commission, now requires:
- Disclosed financial requirements. The purchase application must state the board's minimum financial qualifications, or if it has none, its preferred minimums for income, total assets, credit score, debt-to-income ratio and the share of the price being financed. A cover sheet must also tell the applicant about the Fair Housing Law's protected classes and deadlines.
- 15 days to respond to the application. Within 15 days of receiving it, the board must either acknowledge that the application is complete or tell the applicant what is missing and give them a chance to fix it.
- 60 days to decide. Once the board has a complete application, it has 60 days to approve or reject it.
- A written reason for a rejection. A rejection must be delivered on the model form the Commission publishes, and it must include the reason. Within 15 days of sending it, the board must send a copy to the Commission.
- Training and fines. Board members must complete two hours of fair housing training every two years. Non-compliance can bring fines of $1,000 for a first offense, $1,500 for a second and $2,000 for each one after that.
What the law doesn't do
It does not take away the board's discretion. A board can still turn a buyer down for financial reasons or other legitimate business reasons, even one who meets the published minimums; what it cannot do is reject someone because of a characteristic the Fair Housing Law protects. The county's own guidance makes the point that boards may weigh their criteria differently from one applicant to the next. So the law gives a seller a predictable calendar and a reason when a deal dies, but it does not guarantee that any particular buyer gets through.
It is also a Westchester County law. A co-op in Rockland or Putnam is not covered by it, so if your apartment is there, ask the managing agent up front what timeline the board actually follows. New York City adopted its own, separate co-op timeline rules in 2026; those do not apply to a Westchester building either.
Why the calendar still matters to you
Even with the deadlines, a typical co-op sale runs longer than a house sale. The buyer has to assemble the package before the 15-day clock starts, the board may ask for more, and the 60 days only begin once the application is complete. Your mortgage, maintenance and assessments keep running the whole time, and if the board rejects the buyer, you start again with the next one.
The costs that are different for a co-op
The flip tax
Many co-ops charge a transfer fee when shares change hands, commonly called a flip tax. It is not a government tax. It is set by the building's own proprietary lease or bylaws, and the amount and formula vary from building to building: some charge a percentage of the price, some a percentage of the profit, some a flat amount per share. It is usually the seller's cost. Ask the managing agent for the current figure in writing before you agree to a price.
New York's transfer tax still applies
The state real estate transfer tax covers the transfer of co-op shares just as it covers a deed: $2 for every $500 of consideration, reported on Form TP-584. If the price is $1 million or more, the state's additional 1% tax, often called the mansion tax, also applies to a co-op unit; that one is normally the buyer's to pay. A few Westchester cities have their own transfer taxes with their own rules for co-op sales. Our breakdown of what it really costs to sell in Westchester covers those city taxes, attorney fees and the rest of the seller's side of the closing statement.
If you don't live in New York
A nonresident seller of co-op shares in New York generally has to deal with the state's estimated income tax on the gain at closing, using Form IT-2664 rather than the IT-2663 used for houses. If you moved away years ago, or you are selling a parent's apartment from out of state, raise it with your attorney early.
Payoffs at the closing table
Your share loan, if you have one, is paid off from the proceeds. So is any unpaid maintenance or assessment, along with the managing agent's fees. If there is a special assessment in progress, the contract has to say who pays the installments still to come.
Behind on maintenance or the share loan
Falling behind on a co-op is different from falling behind on a house. Most proprietary leases give the co-op a lien on your shares for unpaid maintenance and charges, and they allow the board to end the lease and go to court to remove an owner who stays in default. Separately, a share loan is secured by the shares themselves rather than by a mortgage on real estate, so a lender in New York can usually sell the shares through a private sale under the Uniform Commercial Code instead of going through a court foreclosure. That can move faster than the house foreclosures described in our guide to the New York foreclosure process.
The practical point: if you are behind, the arrears will come out of your sale price at closing, and every month added to the balance shrinks what you walk away with. Ask the managing agent for a written statement of everything owed, call your lender before it sends a default notice, and talk to a New York attorney about your timeline. A sale that closes before the board or lender acts is almost always better than one that closes after.
Selling a co-op that was inherited
A lot of Westchester co-ops come to market through an estate, often an apartment a parent bought decades ago and lived in until the end. The shares pass through the estate like any other asset, so in most cases the executor or administrator needs letters from the Surrogate's Court before they can sign a contract. Our page on selling an inherited house in the Hudson Valley covers how that works, and the same steps apply to shares.
A few things are specific to co-ops:
- Maintenance doesn't pause for probate. The monthly charge keeps accruing while the estate is opened, and an empty apartment still owes it.
- The buyer still needs board approval. Selling as an estate does not get around the board. If a family member wants to move in rather than sell, check the proprietary lease, because many buildings require the board to approve that transfer too.
- Clearing out the apartment. Buildings usually have move-out rules, elevator reservations and insurance certificates for movers. Schedule the clean-out with the managing agent rather than around them.
If the heirs live outside the area, our guide to selling an inherited Hudson Valley house from out of state walks through handling the sale remotely.
Your options for selling a co-op
1. List it with a broker
For a well-kept unit in a building with healthy finances, listing usually gets the highest price. A broker who knows the building will also know its board, its financing limits and how long its approvals really take. The trade-off is time: a listing period, then a contract, then the board package and the 60-day decision window, with the risk of starting over if the board says no.
2. Look inside the building first
Neighbors, a shareholder buying for a relative, or someone already on the managing agent's waiting list sometimes buy units that need work. They know the board and the building, which can make approval smoother. Ask the managing agent whether anyone has expressed interest.
3. Sell to a direct buyer, where the board allows it
Be careful with any cash buyer who promises a fast co-op closing without having read your building's documents. Many Westchester co-ops do not approve purchases by companies, require buyers to live in the unit, or limit subletting, and any of those rules can make an investor purchase impossible no matter how much cash is on the table. Where the board does allow it, a direct sale removes the financing contingency, the buyer's inspection and the long listing period, and lets you choose the closing date. Our side-by-side of a cash offer against listing lays out the trade-offs, and for a downsizing owner our page on downsizing in the Hudson Valley covers timing the move.
Need a co-op sold? Send us the building rules first.
We'll read the proprietary lease and tell you honestly whether we can buy it, and if we can, make a cash offer and pay the closing costs.
How we handle co-ops
We buy single-family homes, two- and three-families, condos and townhouses across Westchester, Rockland and Putnam, and we buy co-ops where the board allows it. The honest version of that sentence is the important part.
We read the documents before we make promises. Send us the proprietary lease, bylaws or the building's purchase application if you have them. If the board does not approve purchases like ours, we will tell you that up front instead of tying the apartment up in a contract that can't close.
If we can buy it, we buy it as it is. No renovation first, no clean-out required, no financing contingency. That includes units with dated kitchens and baths, units with maintenance arrears to clear at closing, and apartments being sold by an estate.
We cover the costs. There is no commission, and we pay the transfer tax and closing costs. Our price is below what a renovated unit would bring through a broker, because we take on the work, the board process and the carrying costs. If you have a house as well as an apartment to deal with, we buy those across the area too, including in Yonkers and White Plains, and our frequently asked questions cover how our offers and timelines work.
One closing note. This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Every co-op's documents are different, so read your own proprietary lease and bylaws with your New York real estate attorney before you sign a contract, and confirm any flip tax and maintenance balance with the managing agent in writing.
