In a crowded urban environment like New York City, personal space is limited, valuable, and jealously guarded. With dwelling units stacked atop each other and sharing walls, any activity on the part of a neighbor may encroach on the use and quiet enjoyment of another’s property. 

This doesn’t just apply to individual apartments—sometimes the neighbor doing the encroaching is an entire building. Your immediate neighbor may need to access your building (or vice versa) for an array of reasons, including inspections, repair work, and HVAC installations, to name a few. The access agreements, licenses, and easements necessary for granting that access can be tricky business, and over the past few years has become trickier still, thanks largely to mandatory exterior inspections and repairs that by necessity require engineers and contractors to enter and traverse adjacent properties to carry out their work. 

Fortunately, recent amendments to existing laws are helping to more clearly define the legal gray areas around access agreements. Let’s take a look at the current landscape.  

Just Like a Good Neighbor

Perhaps the most important factor to remember when considering access agreements is that while a neighboring building may be asking you for one today, you may be asking them for one tomorrow—and what goes around comes around.  

In particular with the increase in exterior and structural work required by NYC’s many local laws around everything from façade repairs to installing solar panels, neighborliness is a virtue that’s valued more and more. 

Unfortunately however, multifamily condo and co-op boards’ willingness to grant access license to their neighbors has diminished over time. This isn’t so much about being unfriendly or obstinate as it is about boards’ valid concerns about damage to their property, disruption for residents, insurance complications, and privacy and security risks. That unwillingness has resulted in lengthy project delays and lawsuits, both of which can cost tens of thousands of dollars—hence the call for amendments to clarify existing laws and level the playing field between neighbors with equal stakes in the process.

“While there were discussions in 2024, the amendments to the RPAPL §881 were enacted in December of 2025,” says Mark Hakim, partner with Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas, a law firm based in New York City. (RPAPL § 881 is a specific New York state statute that allows a property owner to gain temporary access to a neighboring property when it is ‘regularly necessary’ to perform repairs or improvements on their own building. -Ed.) “The amended law makes it easier for a building owner or developer to get court-ordered access to a neighbor’s property when that access is needed for construction or repairs.”

What’s New?

The new regulations address several areas that had become problematic in the last few years, including mandatory access, scope and purpose, judicial discretion, compensation, and amendments and impact.

If a building truly cannot perform safety work without access to a neighboring property and the board of that property refuses to negotiate, the building requiring access can file a RPAPL § 881 petition. This is a special court proceeding where a judge can grant the neighbor a "judicial license" to enter the property. The catch is that even if the court grants the license, the judge will usually order the neighbor to pay the requesting board’s legal fees, licensing fees, and post a bond to cover potential damages.

Among the most important clarifications, explains Hakim, “Is that the statute now defines access refusal to include a nonresponse after more than one certified written notice and 60 days without a response, so boards cannot safely ignore access requests anymore. 

“It also spells out the kinds of access a court may authorize,” Hakim continues. “That list now expressly includes preconstruction surveys, monitoring devices, scaffolding, protective coverings, sheeting, shoring, and bracing for certain supports like underpinning where required by law, temporary airspace intrusions, relocation of vents or rooftop equipment, and construction staging. That means a board now faces a more detailed statutory framework, rather than arguing from a vague standard alone.”

Another notable modification concerns the permanence of improvements. According to Hal Coopersmith, a principal at the law firm of Coopersmith & Coopersmith, also based in Manhattan, “Prior to the amendment of the law, the legislative history and case law surrounding the statute made it clear that it pertained only to temporary access, and that courts could not grant access for projects that would result in permanent changes to the adjoining property. Under the amendment, courts may now grant access for certain permanent encroachments required by code, regulation, or local law, such as wall ties, tie-backs, anchors, straps, and underpinning, when no practical alternative is available.”

The new amendments to the law also specify license fees, and on what basis these fees can be charged. Robert Banner, a partner at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, a law firm based in New York, notes that the newly amended law specifies loss of use as the criteria upon which license fees can be granted, noting that “for the first time, this puts the burden on the party granting access to document the loss of use and quantify these prospective damages in order to establish reasonable compensation.”

Which Way Forward?

Under the new regulations, should property owners attempt to settle access agreements (or disagreements) directly through private negotiations with their neighbors, or should they head straight to court?

“It’s best for boards to prepare for both private and court negotiations,” says Banner. “When dealing with difficult counsel, It’s often advisable to file RPAPL papers early, as the mere act of filing may lead to a quicker and more favorable outcome. Working closely with legal counsel to weigh options will help guide the process and determine next steps. If demonstrable progress is made during negotiations, there should be no need to prepare RPAPL papers.”

“Private negotiation for an access agreement should now be the strong preference rather than court intervention,” stresses Coopersmith. “You’re going to be neighbors with the adjacent property forever, so it’s helpful to have a productive working relationship. However, with adjacent construction of a development, it is important to have the necessary protections in place.”

Hakim adds that “when the request is legitimate and the other side is being transparent, boards should negotiate privately first. When the requester is vague, underinsured, keeps changing scope, refuses to pay review costs, rejects reasonable protections, or is dragging things out while expecting access anyway, a board should think about going to court early. 

“For a board, the real question is not court or negotiation in the abstract—it’s whether private talks are actually producing the terms a court would likely require anyway,” Hakim continues: “Clear scope, notice procedures, insurance, monitoring, restoration, compensation, and a fixed timetable. If yes, stay in negotiation. If not, court is often better, because the amended law gives judges a more defined framework than before. A board should involve counsel and its engineer at the start, document disruption and loss of use, identify missing protections in writing, and set firm deadlines. Once it becomes clear the other side is not engaging seriously, going to court is usually smarter than letting the project’s urgency pressure the board into a weak license, or no license at all.”

Effects on Litigation

At the heart of the new regulation was an effort to curb the increasing amount of litigation the initial law was triggering. The question now is what effect the new rules will have on that flow of disputes and conflict.

Litigation should become more predictable in structure,” says Hakim, “but not necessarily simpler or less costly. The amendment makes the process more rules-based by defining refusal, listing permissible access categories, requiring notice, documents, and insurance, and expressly recognizing compensation. But the fight will now likely shift to valuation, scope, duration, extensions, and whether the requested intrusion is commercially reasonable.”

Banner cautions that “this is a specialized field with a limited number of attorneys qualified to take on this work, so there is a value in having an attorney who knows what they’re doing, and who can advise on how best to proceed against the other party’s chosen counsel. A firm that’s deemed less aggressive may be easier to negotiate with privately, while a more aggressive firm will try to run out the clock rather than sign a drafted agreement, which will make filing with the courts more of a necessity. Thankfully, under the newly amended rules, that behavior will likely happen less frequently.”

Even if they still prefer to negotiate privately at first, Hakim advises boards to consider going to court earlier than they might have before. The amended statute provides an objective framework for refusing to grant an agreement and more than one certified written notice. Delaying a response can give the other side a clearer path to appeal to the courts, while delaying a board’s ability to shape the record on scope, duration, insurance, and compensation.

The pros all point out that this does not mean that boards should rush to litigate every request. The statute still favors negotiated access where the work is genuinely necessary, and court proceedings will likely focus on specific terms rather than all-or-nothing access: reasonable prior notice, license duration, relevant project documents, insurance, compensation for loss of use and enjoyment including diminution in value, and reimbursement of reasonable review fees. A board that engages early, with guidance from counsel and an engineer, is often best positioned to either settle on strong protections or show the court that its objections to granting access were concrete and reasonable.

Avoid Delays

So how can boards avoid delays caused by uncooperative neighbors?

“It’s important for boards seeking access to put together a detailed written notification [for their neighbor] as early in the process as possible,” explains Banner. “Once a counterpart is engaged, the written notice should be supplemented with the drawings and a project schedule. This will ensure that the requesting board has maximum options should the other side prove uncooperative. As mentioned, the boards should not delay unnecessarily in filing a RPAPL against a truly uncooperative neighbor. The mere act of filing often leads to a quick resolution.”

Banner sums it up: “The old law merely provided for licenses to be granted ‘upon such terms as justice requires.’ The new law is far more robust, and provides both parties seeking access and parties considering requests for access with a more detailed road map of the criteria for seeking a license and for license fees. If boards take advantage of this new road map, they should find that the entire process is more equitable and is less uncertain. Pitfalls still abound, and experienced counsel is still a necessity but one of the more annoying burdens of Manhattan life has been made somewhat more bearable for boards who educate themselves about the new law.”

A.J. Sidransky is a CooperatorNews staff writer and a published novelist. He may be reached at alan@yrinc.com.