New York City Cooperative and Condominium Property Tax Abatement
Who qualifies for the co-op and condo abatement?
Eligibility runs on two levels at once: the building has to be the right kind of property, and you have to be the right kind of owner. Five tests decide nearly every unit.
The five tests
The building must be a tax class 2 co-op or condominium
The statute reaches residential property held in the cooperative or condominium form and designated tax class 2, which covers the overwhelming majority of the city's apartment buildings. What it does not cover: rental buildings of any size, one- to three-family houses, and the small set of condo units that kept a class 1 designation. Owners in those buildings are not out of options, but this abatement is not the program for them.
The building must be your primary residence
Since 2012 the abatement is reserved for owner-occupants: at least one unit you own in the building must be your primary residence. A pied-a-terre, an investment unit in a building you do not live in, or an apartment held for a relative does not qualify on its own. The city checks primary residence through the unit owner's own certification, filed alongside the board's application, and getting that certification right is most of the work for a new owner.
Up to three units per owner, counted per building
An owner may carry the abatement on up to three units in one building, so long as one of them is the primary residence; a storage or parking unit that carries its own tax lot counts against that arithmetic. Own more than three and none qualify. The count runs per building, so a primary residence here and a second unit in another building are judged separately, each in its own building's filing.
People and their trusts qualify; LLCs and sponsors do not
The statute extends the abatement to units held in trust for the benefit of a person who would otherwise qualify, so estate-planning trusts do not cost the benefit. It excludes sponsors and their successors outright. And the city does not grant it to units owned through an LLC or other business entity, because an entity cannot have a primary residence. Deeding an LLC-held unit to its people, or to a trust, restores eligibility from the next taxable status date.
Bigger buildings must certify prevailing wages
Since fiscal year 2022, a building qualifies only if it is a qualified property: average unit assessed value at or under $60,000, or under $100,000 with fewer than thirty apartments, or, for everything larger or more valuable, an affidavit from the board certifying that building service employees are paid the prevailing wage for the life of the abatement. Most large buildings already pay prevailing wages and file the affidavit as routine, but a board that cannot certify forfeits the abatement for every unit in the building.
Benefits that block it, and benefits that do not
The abatement does not stack with everything, and the line surprises people in both directions. STAR, the senior citizen and disabled homeowner exemptions, veterans exemptions and the solar abatement all sit alongside it without conflict: they reduce the tax first, and the percentage comes off what remains. A J-51 abatement also coexists, deducted before the percentage applies.
What blocks it is an exemption: 421-a, 421-b, 421-g, 420-c, a J-51 exemption, and the newer 467-m and 485-x among them. Here is the part owners miss, and it is the difference between writing the abatement off and collecting it. The block lasts exactly as long as the exemption does. While a 421-a exemption is active for the fiscal year, an owner-occupied unit in that building cannot take this abatement at all. The year the exemption expires, the building becomes eligible, and the abatement is claimed on the first February filing after it ends. A building that knows its own expiry date and files into that first cycle loses nothing; one that finds out late loses a year of the benefit it was owed. The checker on the front page reads the city’s exemption record and prints the expiry it has on file.
Find out where your own unit stands
The free check reads the city’s assessment roll and benefit record for your building, computes the tier its average unit value lands in, and prints an estimated annual saving alongside anything in the public record that needs attention. It takes about a minute and asks for no sign-up.