Buying a co-op in Westchester County means buying shares in the corporation that owns the building, plus a proprietary lease that gives you the right to live in one apartment. You do not receive a deed. The co-op’s board must approve you, and county law gives it 15 days to acknowledge a complete application and 60 days to decide. Your monthly maintenance pays your share of the building’s property taxes, any mortgage the corporation carries, its operating costs and its reserves.

Buyers coming from a Manhattan co-op will recognize most of this. What differs is Westchester’s own board law, with its deadlines, disclosure rules and written rejection reasons. The practical side of the move is in our guide to moving to Westchester from Manhattan.

Board deadlines: Westchester County Fair Housing Law, Section 700.21-a.

A condo is real estate. A co-op is stock plus a lease. New York’s Condominium Act, Article 9-B of the Real Property Law, says each condo unit “shall for all purposes constitute real property” and is taxed separately. In a co-op, the corporation owns the entire building, is assessed for its real estate taxes and may carry a mortgage on it, while each shareholder signs a proprietary lease.

NY Real Property Law 339-g and 339-y. NY Attorney General, 13 NYCRR 18.3. Westchester County Clerk fee schedule. Houlihan Lawrence Q2 2026 report.

Westchester County puts deadlines and disclosure rules on co-op boards. Section 700.21-a of the county Fair Housing Law was signed on December 14, 2018 and strengthened by an amendment effective August 1, 2021. It applies to the board of every New York co-op corporation that controls property in the county.

• Financial criteria in writing. The application must disclose the building’s minimum qualifications or, if it has none, its preferred minimum income, assets and credit score and its preferred maximum debt-to-income ratio and percentage financed.
• 15 days to acknowledge. The board must confirm a complete application or list what is missing, and has another 15 days after each resubmission.
• 60 days to decide. From a complete application, the board must approve or reject in writing.
• A stated reason. Rejections use the Human Rights Commission’s model form, which states the reason, with a copy to the Commission within 15 days.
• Training and fines. Board members need two hours of fair housing training every two years. Violations carry fines of $1,000, then $1,500, then $2,000.

The law does not narrow why a board may say no. The Board of Legislators noted that co-ops “have wide-ranging discretion in choosing who to approve and why,” but fair housing law bars rejection based on protected characteristics, which in Westchester include source of income, age and marital status. The Commission received 274 co-op rejection notices in 2023 and 226 in 2024. No official figure is published for applications, so no rejection rate can be calculated.

Westchester County Fair Housing Law, Section 700.21-a (text as amended effective June 6, 2023), and Human Rights Commission guidance, accessed September 21, 2026. Board of Legislators release, June 29, 2021. Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2023-2024.

The board package is your application: the financial and personal file the board uses to decide whether to admit you as a shareholder. Each building sets its own document list. The county’s model rejection form lists the reasons a board can give. Its checkboxes include credit score, debt-to-income ratio, income, savings and assets, job history, bankruptcies or evictions, references, a criminal background check, the price or down payment, and the intended use of the apartment.

• Check the disclosed criteria before you make an offer.
• Prepare the loan and the package together, since the lender and the board review the same finances.
• Submit a complete package and note the date the board acknowledges it.
• Attend the interview if the building holds one. The county form records an interview date only where one is held.
• Close after written approval, due within 60 days of a complete application.

Read sublet and pet rules at the same stage. The Attorney General requires co-op offering plans to describe restrictions on leasing the apartment and any related fees, and “impermissible intended use” is a listed rejection reason. Pet rules are set by each building, though county law requires reasonable accommodations, including an animal, for a person with a disability.

Human Rights Commission Model Rejection Notice (2021). 13 NYCRR 18.3(u). Westchester County Fair Housing Law, Section 700.21.

Maintenance is your share of the building’s whole budget: the corporation’s real estate taxes, debt service on its mortgage, staff, heat, utilities, repairs, insurance and management, plus reserves where the building funds them. It excludes your own loan payment, repairs inside your apartment and separately metered utilities. It is allocated by shares, or in some buildings by rooms, so apartments with more shares pay more.

The Attorney General’s rules require offering plans to warn that shareholders “are co-dependent on each other” for the building’s mortgage and taxes. Read the budget and the last two years of audited financial statements, the documents Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide uses to test whether a co-op covers its debt, operating costs and reserves.

13 NYCRR 18.3, Schedule B. NY Business Corporation Law 501(c). Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.3-02.

If the corporation qualifies under Internal Revenue Code section 216, you can deduct your share of the real estate taxes and mortgage interest it pays, and the IRS usually lets you treat interest on your share loan as home mortgage interest. Your share is your shares divided by total shares, and the IRS notes the corporation will generally tell you the amount. These are itemized deductions, and the tax share counts toward the federal limit on state and local tax deductions.

For STAR, the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance lists co-op apartments as eligible, but the STAR exemption is closed to new homeowners. New owners register for the STAR credit, paid by check or direct deposit, with a $500,000 combined income limit for owners and spouses.

For how the underlying bill is built, see our guide to Westchester County property taxes.

26 U.S.C. 216. IRS Publications 530 and 936 (2025). NYS Department of Taxation and Finance STAR pages, accessed September 21, 2026. NYS Office of Real Property Tax Services, STAR for Cooperative Apartments (2020).

A co-op loan is a share loan, not a mortgage. The lender takes a pledge of your shares and an assignment of your lease, files a UCC financing statement (in Westchester, with the County Clerk, with a co-op addendum), and obtains a recognition agreement from the co-op. For loans Fannie Mae buys, that agreement or the co-op’s documents must give the lender notice of a 90-day maintenance delinquency and a right to cure. Because no mortgage is recorded, the mortgage recording tax, a tax on recording a mortgage on real property, does not apply.

A flip tax is a fee paid to the corporation when shares change hands. New York’s Business Corporation Law permits it when the proprietary leases, offering plan or approved amendments provide for it, so the amount and payer vary. Ask for the terms before you set a price, and size your down payment to the building’s disclosed financing limit.

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.3-03 and B4-2.3-04. NY UCC 9-501. Westchester County Clerk. NYS Department of Taxation and Finance. NYC Department of Finance mortgage recording tax report (2021). NY Business Corporation Law 501(c).

The county co-op median was $235,000 in Q2 2026, up 6.8 percent, on 379 sales against 405 a year earlier. Condos were $575,000, up 7.7 percent, on 341 sales (see our market report). In Bronxville, co-ops start from around $300,000 in a village with a single-family median near $3.0 million, as our Rye vs. Bronxville comparison explains.

Houlihan Lawrence Q2 2026 report, published July 13, 2026. Bronxville: The Francie Malina Team’s Westchester village analysis.