Category: Local Law 97

LL97 compliance for NYC commercial real estate

Local Law 97 for Co-ops and Condos: Pathways, Penalties, and the 2026 Board Playbook

Updated October 6, 2026.

As of October 6, 2026, co-op and condo boards should confirm LL97 pathway and CY2025 filing status in BEAM; the June 30 and August 29, 2026 filing deadlines have passed — this guide does not state outcomes for any building.

If your co-op or condo building is over 25,000 square feet, Local Law 97 applies to you — but which version applies, and what it costs, depends on your building’s rent-regulation mix, and 2026 is the year one of the gentler pathways gets real. The legal challenge is over (the Glen Oaks suit — brought by a Queens co-op — lost at New York’s highest court in May 2025, with no appeal possible), the Council bill to delay penalties for moderate-value condos and co-ops died at the end of session, and multifamily buildings filed their first-year reports at a 94% rate. The question for boards is no longer whether LL97 is happening. It is which pathway you are on, and what the next capital plan should assume.

First question: which pathway is your building on?

LL97 is not one rule for all residential buildings — coverage splits on rent regulation and affordability status (DOB LL97 page):

Pathway	Who is on it	What applies
Article 320, standard (Pathway 0)	Most market-rate co-ops and condos >25,000 sqft (or condo buildings sharing a board totaling >50,000 sqft)	Emissions caps from 2024, annual RDP-certified reports, $268/tCO2e overage penalties
Article 320, 2026 start (Pathway 1)	Buildings with at least one but no more than 35% rent-regulated units	Cap compliance began January 1, 2026 — this year is their first capped year
Article 320, 2035 start (Pathway 2)	Certain buildings under §28-320.3.9	Caps begin 2035
Article 321, prescriptive (Pathway 3)	>35% rent-regulated, HDFC co-ops, Mitchell-Lama, income-restricted, project-based federal housing	One-time prescriptive energy measures (a defined checklist of upgrades) instead of caps; $10,000 penalties for non-compliance

Your pathway is shown on the Covered Buildings List published each year on DOB’s LL97 page; disputes go through a BEAM portal ticket. If your building has a mix of rent-regulated units, checking the percentage against DOF records is the single highest-value hour a managing agent can spend this year — Pathway 1 buildings are in their first capped year right now, and many boards do not know it.

The math boards actually face

The multifamily emissions cap for 2024–2029 is 0.00675 tCO2e per square foot (1 RCNY 103-14). For a 120,000 sq ft co-op, that is an annual limit of 810 tCO2e. Exceed it by 100 tons and the penalty is $26,800 a year. Fail to file at all and the penalty is 120,000 × $0.50 = $60,000 per month — which is why “we’re under the cap so we don’t need to do anything” is the most expensive sentence in co-op governance. Filing is mandatory regardless of emissions; for most buildings under the cap it costs the $210 fee plus the engineer.

About 9% of covered properties exceed today’s caps — but roughly 57% exceed the 2030 caps (Urban Green Council). For residential boards the 2030 number is the one that belongs in the reserve study, because the realistic retrofit menu — heat pump conversions, window and envelope work, boiler replacement timed to end-of-life — takes more than one budget cycle to finance and execute. Habitat’s reporting captured the honest owner calculus: some owners are choosing fines over retrofits because, as one put it, eliminating the fine would cost “15 to 20 times the fine amount” (Habitat, March 2025). That math can be rational in 2026 — and flips as the caps tighten and the fines repeat annually, forever.

What boards hoping for a rescue should know

The lawsuit is over. Glen Oaks Village Owners — a Queens garden co-op — argued the state climate law preempted LL97. The NY Court of Appeals rejected the challenge on May 22, 2025 (opinion); as a state-law ruling from the highest court, it cannot be appealed further.
The relief bills stalled. Int 1197 (Lee/Ung), which would have delayed penalties for condos and co-ops with average unit assessed value under $65,000, was never moved by the Speaker; Int 1180’s REC cap also died at end of session. No amendment has touched the $268 rate, the caps, or the May 1 cycle.
Enforcement has started. DOB’s April 22, 2026 release: 93% of covered properties filed, ~1,400 non-filers are receiving Notices of Deficiency, and OATH penalty cases are being prepared (DOB press release).

The board playbook for 2026

October 2026 status: The June 30, 2026 statutory deadline and the August 29, 2026 extended deadline (for buildings that secured a $60 extension by June 30) are both in the past. Use DOB BEAM and DOB NOW records to verify whether your building filed; this article does not state filing outcomes for any property.

Confirm your pathway and filing status in BEAM today. As of October 6, 2026, the June 30, 2026 and August 29, 2026 CY2025 filing deadlines have passed; verify whether your building filed rather than assuming an outcome. See the LL97 2026 deadlines reference.
Get the real number before the meeting. An energy audit that converts “we might be over” into “we are 110 tons over, which is $29,480 a year, and these three measures close 80% of it” changes the quality of every board conversation that follows.
Time retrofits to equipment life, not to panic. The cheapest decarbonization is the boiler you were going to replace anyway, replaced with the electric option, with the beneficial-electrification credits that remain richest before December 2026.
Know the mitigation menu before you need it: good-faith-efforts (requires filed reports + current LL84 + LL88 attestation plus a qualifying path like an RDP-certified decarbonization plan); RECs (electricity-attributable emissions only, NYC-deliverable); AHRF offsets (capped at 10% of your limit, $268/ton); and after a fire or flood, the disaster provision that can zero a penalty year with documentation (1 RCNY 103-14(i)(1)).
Use the free help. NYC Accelerator provides no-cost LL97 compliance guidance, and the Building Energy Exchange published a co-op/condo-specific playbook, Cutting Carbon in Co-ops & Condos, in May 2026.

What this means for each seat at the table

If you are the…	LL97 in 2026 means…
Board (the owner)	The penalty exposure and the capital plan are yours. Put the 2030 number in the reserve study now; annual fines are a recurring line item, not a one-time fee.
Managing agent (the coordinator)	Pathway verification, the three-portal filing chain, the RDP booking, and the mitigation paperwork run through you — including the disaster documentation if the building ever floods or burns.
Shareholders / unit owners (the residents)	LL97 costs reach you through maintenance and common charges either as planned retrofit financing or as unplanned fines — and the planned version is almost always cheaper. The A–F energy grade at the entrance is your building’s public report card.

Frequently asked questions

Does Local Law 97 apply to co-ops and condos?

Yes — co-op and condo buildings over 25,000 square feet (or condo buildings under one board totaling over 50,000 square feet) are covered. The applicable pathway depends on rent-regulation and affordability status: most market-rate buildings face Article 320 caps; buildings over 35% rent-regulated, HDFC, and Mitchell-Lama follow Article 321’s one-time prescriptive measures instead.

What is the LL97 penalty for a co-op?

The same as any Article 320 building: (actual emissions minus the cap) × $268 per ton CO2e per year, and $0.50 per square foot per month for failing to file. Article 321 buildings face $10,000 penalties for late or missing compliance reports.

What changed for partially rent-regulated buildings in 2026?

Buildings with at least one but no more than 35% rent-regulated units (Pathway 1) began cap compliance on January 1, 2026 — 2026 is their first capped calendar year, reportable in 2027.

Did the co-op lawsuit against LL97 succeed?

No. Glen Oaks Village Owners v. City of New York was decided against the challengers by the NY Court of Appeals on May 22, 2025, and cannot be appealed further. LL97 is settled law.

Will LL97 raise my maintenance or common charges?

For buildings over their caps, yes — the only question is whether the increase funds planned retrofits (often with incentives, and timed to equipment replacement) or recurring annual fines. The retrofit usually wins over a ten-year horizon, especially with 2030’s stricter caps.

Where can a board get free LL97 help?

NYC Accelerator (accelerator.nyc/ll97) offers free compliance guidance, and the Building Energy Exchange’s May 2026 “Cutting Carbon in Co-ops & Condos” playbook is written specifically for residential boards.

Primary sources

How to File a Local Law 97 Report: The DOB NOW, ESPM, and BEAM Walkthrough Nobody Gives You

Updated October 6, 2026.

As of October 6, 2026, CY2025 LL97 filing deadlines have passed; use this DOB NOW → ESPM → BEAM walkthrough for the next filing cycle and verify current deadlines in city systems — not invented outcomes here.

Filing a Local Law 97 report takes three separate city systems used in a fixed order — pay the fee in DOB NOW: Safety, stage your energy data in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, then file in BEAM — and because the systems sync overnight, the whole sequence physically cannot be completed in one day. That is not an exaggeration; it is the Department of Buildings’ own guidance. As DOB’s assistant commissioner for sustainability put it: “You cannot complete a report in one day and you need to plan for that” (Habitat, March 2025).

Here is the full walkthrough — who does what, in what order, with which fees — written for the person actually coordinating it.

Before you touch a portal: the five things to line up

Confirm your building is on the Covered Buildings List. The current-year CBL is published on DOB’s LL97 page; coverage follows Department of Finance records (>25,000 gsf single building; 50,000 gsf tax-lot or condo-board aggregates). Disputes are filed as a ticket in BEAM — not by email, not by phone.
Book your Registered Design Professional now. Only a NY-licensed PE or RA can certify and submit an Article 320 report. RDP calendars compress brutally in May and June; the engineer, not the portal, is the real bottleneck.
Gather your identifiers: BBL (borough-block-lot) and BIN numbers, plus the ESPM property ID. Reports and fees are keyed to these.
Align the email addresses. The owner, the property manager, and the energy consultant must use consistent email addresses across all three systems — mismatched emails are the most common reason a filing stalls with no error message.
Check your ESPM property type. “Other” and “Mixed Use” property types are prohibited for LL97 reporting. If your building is typed that way in Portfolio Manager, fix it before anything else — the report cannot file against it.

Step 1 — DOB NOW: Safety: pay first, or nothing unlocks

All LL97 fees are paid in DOB NOW: Safety, and BEAM will not accept your report until the payment clears — which happens in the overnight sync, not instantly. The fee schedule (1 RCNY 101-03):

Filing	Fee
Simple annual emissions report	$210
Complex annual emissions report	$615
Extension request	$60
Good-faith-efforts report	$950
Article 321 mediated resolution report	$800

Practical translation (filing year when the statutory deadline was June 30): coordinators paid in DOB NOW by June 29 because systems sync overnight, and many treated June 26 as the last safe start date. In October 2026, confirm the active deadline in BEAM for your next report rather than assuming CY2025 timing still applies.

Step 2 — ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager: where the numbers live

Your building’s energy consumption — electricity, gas, steam, fuel oil — flows from ESPM, the same system used for LL84 benchmarking (due the same May 1). Three coordinator notes:

Find your ESPM Data Administrator early. Buildings change managers and consultants; the person who holds administrative rights over the ESPM record is frequently someone who left two years ago. Recovering access takes days you may not have.
Whole-building data means tenant data. If tenants are separately metered, their consumption still counts against the building’s number — the annual tenant-data chase should start in January, not May.
LL84 and LL97 feed from the same trough. Upload once, comply twice: current LL84 benchmarking is also a legal prerequisite for LL97 good-faith-efforts penalty mitigation.

Step 3 — BEAM: where the report actually files

The BEAM portal (launched March 3, 2025) is where the RDP certifies and submits the report — and where everything else LL97 happens too, as numbered tickets: extension requests, Covered Buildings List disputes, penalty-mitigation claims, and deductions. Two things to know:

BEAM unlocks only after your DOB NOW payment has cleared overnight. Pay Monday, file Tuesday at the earliest.
The RDP submits; you prepare. A smooth filing is one where the engineer logs in to a record with clean ESPM data, matching emails, and a cleared fee — and spends their billable hour certifying instead of troubleshooting.

The complete sequence, as a checklist

When	Action	System	Who
January	Start tenant energy data collection; verify ESPM access and property type	ESPM	PM / consultant
February	Book the RDP; confirm CBL status; align emails across systems	—	PM
March–April	Complete ESPM data for the calendar year; run LL84 benchmarking	ESPM	Consultant
April	Pay the LL97 filing fee	DOB NOW: Safety	PM
By May 1	RDP certifies and submits the report	BEAM	RDP
CY2025 late deadline: June 30, 2026 (passed)	File within grace, or pay $60 and apply for extension to Aug 29	BEAM + DOB NOW	PM

If something goes wrong

Building should not be on the CBL (sold, demolished, under threshold)? File the CBL dispute ticket in BEAM with DOF documentation — do not simply skip filing; the $0.50/sqft/month non-filing penalty attaches to the listed property until the list changes.
Over the cap? File anyway — filing and penalty exposure are separate questions — then pursue good-faith-efforts mitigation (1 RCNY 103-14(i)(2)) or, after a documented disaster, the penalty-zero provision (103-14(i)(1)).
Missed the June 30, 2026 deadline with no extension? Penalties may still accrue; file as soon as possible and verify status in BEAM: penalties accrue monthly and retroactively to May 1, so every month of delay on a 60,000 sq ft building is another $30,000.

What this means for each seat at the table

If you are the…	Your part of the filing is…
Owner	Authorize fees early and sign off on the RDP engagement in Q1, not Q2. The cheapest LL97 program is the one that never touches the penalty schedule.
Facility / property manager	You are the integration layer: CBL status, identifiers, email consistency, ESPM access, tenant data, fee payment, and the RDP’s calendar. The portals don’t talk to each other — you are the API.
Tenant	Your meter data is part of the building’s filing. Answering the energy-data request in February instead of April is the single most helpful thing you can do — and increasingly, leases require it.

Frequently asked questions

How do I file a Local Law 97 report?

In three systems, in order: pay the filing fee in DOB NOW: Safety ($210 simple / $615 complex), stage the building’s energy data in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, then have a Registered Design Professional certify and submit the report in the BEAM portal. The systems sync overnight, so the sequence takes a minimum of two days.

What is the BEAM portal?

BEAM (nyc.beam-portal.org) is DOB’s LL97 filing system, launched March 3, 2025. Reports, extension requests, Covered Buildings List disputes, and penalty-mitigation claims are all submitted there as numbered tickets.

Why won’t BEAM accept my report?

The two most common causes: the DOB NOW fee payment has not cleared the overnight sync yet, or the email addresses on the BEAM, DOB NOW, and ESPM records do not match. A prohibited ESPM property type (“Other” or “Mixed Use”) will also block the filing.

Can I file the LL97 report myself?

No. An Article 320 report must be certified and submitted by a Registered Design Professional — a NY-licensed Professional Engineer or Registered Architect. The property manager prepares and coordinates; the RDP files.

How much does it cost to file?

$210 for a simple annual report, $615 for a complex one, $60 for an extension application, $950 for a good-faith-efforts report — all paid in DOB NOW: Safety, all per 1 RCNY 101-03. The RDP’s professional fee is separate and market-rate.

Do LL84 and LL97 use the same data?

Largely yes — both draw on the building’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager record, and both are due May 1. Keeping LL84 benchmarking current is also a legal prerequisite for LL97 good-faith-efforts penalty mitigation.

Primary sources

BC ESG

ESG Strategy, Sustainability Intelligence, and Business Continuity for Forward-Thinking Organizations