You’ve picked the tile and the vanity, and the contractor can start in three weeks. Then you open the condo documents to check one thing and find a page about alterations, and a line saying nothing starts until the managing agent signs off. You’ve also heard about the board that stopped work halfway through a renovation and made someone undo it. Now you’re wondering whether you also need a permit from the town, whether the board’s approval counts as the permit, and how long all of this is going to take.
It’s a reasonable thing to be unsure about, because nobody hands you a single checklist. One person who had been through it in a co-op summed up the list as “alteration agreement, architect drawings, board approval, DOB filings, insurance requirements,” and that was before they got to work hours and water shutdowns. That list came from a city high-rise, and a garden condo in Mohegan Lake will usually ask for a lot less. The basic shape is the same, though.
The short answer, and why there are two approvals
Do I need a permit and board approval to renovate a kitchen or bathroom in a Westchester condo or co-op?
Usually you need both, and they’re two separate approvals from two separate offices. The town or village building department issues the building permit whenever plumbing or electrical moves, a wall comes out, or a gas line changes. The board or managing agent approves the work on its own track, usually through an alteration agreement, and many buildings want that even for a cosmetic job, so call the managing agent first.
The two approvals answer different questions. The permit is the government checking that the work meets the building code. The board approval is the owners checking that your job won’t hurt the building they all share. One homeowner put the limit of the second one bluntly: “HOAs cannot arrest you or issue government permits.” The reverse is true too. A permit from the town doesn’t oblige your board to let the job go ahead.
The permit comes from your town, not the county
Westchester doesn’t have a county building department, so the permit comes from whichever town, village or city your building sits in. A condo in Mohegan Lake or Jefferson Valley goes through the Town of Yorktown, because those are hamlets of Yorktown with no permit office of their own. A unit in Peekskill goes to the City of Peekskill, one in Croton-on-Hudson to the village, and one over the line in Mahopac to the Town of Carmel in Putnam County. Each office sets its own forms and fees, so check with the one that covers your address.
The triggers look about the same as they do in a house. If you’re moving the toilet, turning a tub into a shower, adding circuits for a new range, or taking out the wall between the kitchen and the dining area, expect a permit. If you’re replacing a vanity with the plumbing where it is, or painting, a permit usually isn’t needed, though the board may still want to hear about it. Our bathroom permit guide goes through the triggers in more detail, and there’s a broader look at permits for other kinds of remodeling if the job goes past one room.
Whoever does the work should be the one pulling it. Someone on a bathroom remodeling forum gave the rule of thumb: “If he doesn’t want to pull the permits, it’s because he’s not authorized to pull a permit.” In a condo that matters more than usual, because the managing agent will often ask for a copy of the permit before the work starts.
What the board or managing agent actually wants to see
This part varies more than the permit does, so the first job is getting the building’s own rules. Ask the managing agent for the alteration agreement, or whatever your building calls its renovation policy, and read it before you sign anything with a contractor. A few things come up in almost every one.
Floors come first, because hard flooring over someone else’s ceiling is the classic fight. As one person on a condo forum explained, “there are usually minimum soundproofing requirements in condos and townhouses,” so ask which underlayment the building requires before you pick the floor.
Plumbing is the other big one. Shared risers and shared walls are the reason boards care so much about bathroom remodels. A homeowner on a remodeling forum made the point in one line: “All it takes is one wrong cut or drill and you’re leaking into your neighbor’s unit.” Expect questions about shutoffs, who touches the riser, and what happens to the walls you open.
The managing agent will also want a certificate of insurance from the contractor, and often wants the association named on it. A certificate that comes straight from the insurer is better than a photocopy, and asking for one is normal.
Then there’s the day-to-day stuff: work hours, where the debris goes, where the crew parks, and how much notice the neighbors below and beside you get.
For a layout change, some boards want drawings and a look from their own engineer. For a like-for-like swap, a written scope and a product list are often enough.
On timing, plan for weeks. One co-op owner who was “just re-doing floor/cabinets in my tiny galley kitchen” said it “took about 5-6 weeks to get the go ahead.” A smaller self-managed condo association may move faster, but someone answering that question on a city forum was blunt about it: “Expecting a one-week turnaround on this is not realistic.” Build that into your start date rather than booking the contractor first and hoping.
Who to call, and in what order
Start with the managing agent or the board, then the contractor, then the town. The building’s rules can change what you’re allowed to do, like which floor you put down or whether the toilet can move, and you don’t want a permit filed for a plan the board will turn down. A sensible sequence goes like this:
- Get the alteration agreement and the building’s insurance requirements from the managing agent.
- Have the contractor measure in person and write the scope to fit those rules.
- Send the scope, the insurance certificate and any drawings to the board for approval.
- Have the contractor file for the town permit, and give the managing agent a copy once it’s issued.
- Book the start date only when both approvals are in writing.
Sometimes the board has already approved the job and the town still needs to issue the permit, or the other way around. Either way, the job doesn’t start until you have both.
When work started before anyone asked
If you’ve bought a unit where the last owner redid the bathroom without approval, or a neighbor’s complaint has stopped your own job halfway, you’re not the first. Someone on a condo owners’ forum put it this way, “the violation now isn’t the doing the work without approval, the violation now is the existence of an unapproved bathroom.” That’s the useful way to think about it. The fix is usually to go back through both offices with what’s there now, get the work inspected, and correct whatever doesn’t pass. That’s slower than doing it in order, but most of the time it’s fixable.
If your bathroom is the only one in the unit, it’s also worth planning how you’ll get through the weeks without it, since approval delays tend to push the start date and not the end date.
How this goes when you call us
Yorktown Kitchen and Bath is a referral service, so when you call, we connect you with a licensed local remodeler. For a condo or co-op job, that’s a contractor who measures in person and gives you a written, itemized estimate with the exclusions listed, which is the scope your board will ask for. They pull the permit in their own name, and they’ll have the insurer send a certificate of insurance when the managing agent asks for one. Bring your building’s alteration agreement to the first visit, and the estimate can be written around it from the start.
Bathrooms go to one remodeler and kitchens to another, and both work across northern Westchester. If you’re planning a condo or co-op bathroom, start with bathroom remodeling in Yorktown Heights or call (914) 228-6746.
Last updated October 20, 2026
