One of the last major states to adopt one
New York adopted its transfer-on-death deed law on April 20, 2024, as part of its Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget, with the law taking effect on July 19, 2024. Codified as Real Property Law § 424, it lets an owner or joint owners designate one or more beneficiaries to receive real property automatically at death, similar to naming a beneficiary on a bank account. New York joined the majority of states that already allowed some version of this tool — arriving considerably later than many of them.
Broader eligible property than some states
Unlike California, which limits its transfer-on-death deed to small residential parcels, New York's version reaches any interest in real property located in the state that's transferable at the owner's death — there's no size or use restriction built into the statute itself. The deed can even be used by entities beyond individuals for some purposes, since the beneficiary definition extends to associations, corporations, government agencies, and partnerships, though the transferor making the deed must be an individual.
Co-op apartments are excluded
Here's the catch that matters enormously in New York City: a cooperative apartment isn't legally real property under New York law. Ownership of a co-op unit is represented by shares in the cooperative corporation, plus a proprietary lease — both classified as intangible personal property, not real estate. Because the TOD deed statute applies only to real property, it simply doesn't reach a co-op apartment, no matter how the owner wants to structure their estate plan. A condominium, by contrast, is real property and can use the TOD deed normally.
Joint ownership still comes first
Just as in several other TOD deed states, New York's version doesn't override an existing right of survivorship. If the property is owned jointly with survivorship — whether a joint tenancy or a tenancy by the entirety — and another owner outlives the transferor, that surviving joint owner gets the property. The TOD deed only becomes effective for that property if the transferor turns out to be the last surviving joint owner. When joint owners make a TOD deed together, they're naming a beneficiary to take the property only after all of them have died.
No anti-lapse, and no minor beneficiaries
If a named beneficiary dies before the transferor, that beneficiary's share lapses automatically to any other named beneficiaries — it doesn't pass down to that beneficiary's own children or heirs. And a TOD deed simply doesn't work if the beneficiary is a minor, since a minor can't take ownership of the property directly when the deed becomes effective.
Divorce revokes a former spouse's share
Under § 424(12), which applies EPTL 5-1.4, divorce automatically revokes a former spouse's share as a designated beneficiary — the same basic protection New York law already provides for spousal provisions in a will. An owner who later remarries or wants a different outcome needs to record a new TOD deed reflecting that.