Your board is asking this with a date already on it: an underlying mortgage that matures, a repair the building has to fund, a term of office that ends. There is no single number that fits every co-op, and the conditions that set yours are ones your board already knows about. A conversion starts at as little as six months, and complex or previously stalled buildings can take years. We can tell you where your own building sits between those two ends before you have committed to anything.
FAQ · The Process
How Long Does a Co-op to Condo Conversion Take?
There's no single number. A conversion starts at as little as six months, and complex or previously stalled buildings can take years.
Written by Jack Boyajian, President Updated September 2026
What sets your building's own schedule?
The underlying mortgage decides more of your calendar than anything else does. If it matures soon, your date is set for you already, and the whole conversion has something definite to work toward. If it has years left to run, or carries a penalty for paying it off early, resolving it becomes the slowest piece of work and the rest waits on it. Your governing documents come next, because your bylaws and your proprietary lease set how many shares have to approve the plan and how the vote is called. The third condition is your own shareholders, and it is the one boards underestimate, since a community that has never been walked through what a conversion does to an individual unit will not be ready to vote on the board's schedule.
What happens in those months?
We examine your co-op first: an independent appraisal of sample units as condominiums, a reading of your governing documents for the shareholder approval a conversion needs, and an examination of your financial condition including the underlying loan obligation. The education comes next, in large and small group sessions held near the property or on the premises and in one-on-one sessions with each shareholder, and every household receives an individual report showing the difference in valuation and in monthly cash flow for that unit. Your shareholders then vote, and if they approve, we proceed with the conversion plan while your board keeps the authority to execute and approve all final documents and plans. Several of these run at the same time, so your calendar belongs to the slowest of them, and the slowest is seldom the one a board expects.
Does the vote set the rest of the calendar?
Most governing documents and state statutes ask for two-thirds of the shares, weighted by share, and an abstention counts as a no. We have completed every conversion we have conducted once the shareholders approved it. If the shares are not there the first time, we come back, and if approval is ultimately not obtained your co-op incurs no expense whatsoever. A community that needs a second vote has taken the long road to the same deed, and that is part of why the far end of this range is measured in years.
How long is the closing itself?
The closing where the deeds are delivered is scheduled building by building, from a few days to a few weeks. It is the shortest part of the work and the part your board is most likely to expect to be the longest. Your own date for it comes out of the schedule we set with your board once the plan has been approved.
Can a building move quickly?
Terrace Towers in Miami Beach came to us with its mortgage coming due and a facade restoration ordered by city and county building officials that the community had to fund either way. All 144 units were converted, the funding was completed and the restoration was started. A board that already knows its deadline, and has its own numbers in front of it, works at the fast end of this range.
What can your board settle before any of it starts?
Two of the three conditions are in your hands right now. Your bylaws, your proprietary lease and your current financial statements can be in front of us before the work begins, which removes the first avoidable delay in a conversion. The education is the other one, because it is what closes the distance between a board that has already decided and a community that has not yet heard the case. Boards that begin both of these early are the boards whose conversions finish at the short end of the range.
Finding out what your own schedule looks like costs you nothing. A feasibility study of your cooperative carries no cost and no obligation to your board or your members, and it is where we would start with you. It pre-qualifies your co-op in advance, so you know whether there is good reason to proceed before you have asked anything of your shareholders. When it is done, your board is no longer working from a range. You have a schedule drawn from your own mortgage, your own bylaws and your own community, which is the answer you came to this page for.
Ready to talk specifics?
Turn this into a building-specific conversation
A feasibility study gives your board a real, deal-specific answer, at no cost to start.