Q Our co-op has a prospective purchaser who refuses to buy the shares in his own name. He wants the shares to be purchased by a holding company or limited liability corporation (LLC) that was created specifically for that purpose. Ho…
For decades, co-op boards and managers have had to walk a delicate line between generating revenue and obeying the law when it came to renting out space in their buildings to commercial tenants. As of December 20, 2007, that has cha…
Q We have a two-building, 146-unit cooperative that has a five-hundred-square-foot ground floor of commercial rental space. It has been vacant for about a month now. We, the board of directors, would like to know: Can this space be con…
People like to think that they can do anything they darn well please within their own walls so long as no laws are being broken. Want to paint your walls purple and your ceilings green? Who’s gonna stop you? In the mood for loud music an…
Talk about tense situations. There’s the sweaty-palm inducing job interview or the anxiety-riddled prospect of getting down on one knee to propose. And who can forget those tense moments scratching out an answer on the SAT test, knowing …
Your roof terrace leaked and the neighbor below you sued for damages. Do you have any recourse? The heating system in your apartment failed to work and the managing agent sent you the bill for its repair. Do you have to pay? The a…
It may sound like an oxymoron, but in the world of co-ops there is such a thing as “bad income.” The federal tax code requires that cooperative buildings receive at least 80 percent of their income from their shareholders—usually in th…
Each year, our representatives in the New York State Legislature propose, debate, and ultimately pass or reject scores of laws and pieces of legislation. This issue of The Cooperator is devoted to the legal and legislative issue…
Several interesting court decisions regarding co-ops and condos were made during the latter part of 2005. The decisions received some commentary, but perhaps not the attention that they deserve. In a condo case, the Appellate Court tha…
Any transfer of ownership of a cooperative unit will require the cooperative corporation to cancel the old stock certificate and issue a new one. Many see this step as a simple clerical task, and often it is the managing agents that keep th…