May 15, 2012 — In 1982, Habitat published articles covering three new co-op projects that had hit the market. One of them, advertised as "one of Midtown’s last and best loft conversions," was a co-op in the Flatiron District. How has it fared, 30 years on, from that very different world to now? Read More »

The co-op board approval process may seem simple or complex, depending on the board, but one thing is certain: It's all about whether you're going to be a good fit for the building, both financially and personally. "It's a crap shoot," admits Peter Lehr of Kaled Management. "Is that person going to be an ideal shareholder or is that person going to be a nightmare?" Read More »

You're the woman in an unmarried couple looking to buy a co-op apartment. During the board's admission interview, one member turns to you and asks, "How old are you? Do the two of you intend to marry? If you have children, will you continue working as a lawyer after they are born?" Now here's one more question: Was the board allowed to ask any of those things? Read More »

Here is the complete, searchable text of the New York State Multiple Dwelling Law, the guiding document for the construction and habitability of New York City apartment houses. It covers everything from the placement of fire exists to prohibitions against such arcana as having a commercial fat-boiling facility in your apartment. Those more obscure regulations paint a vivid picture of what New York City used to be like, and the kinds of things people really and truly did that led to fires, explosions, disease, entrapment and other tragedies that, through hard experience, led to the New York State Multiple Dwelling Law being formed.

Yet finding all of the law's provisions online, in one place, readily searchable through links, has never been easy. That's why Habitat has created this section. Anyone, from renter to co-op or condo apartment-owner to landlord now can use these links to quickly get to the exact section you need — all, for the first time, right at your fingertips. Read More »

Oct. 21, 2011 — Your building converted to co-op in 1962. You've lived there since 1986. Now it's 2011 and you want to check the proprietary lease to confirm a supposed rule that the board says you've broken.

Yeah, good luck with that. Sure, not every co-op / condo board member or apartment-owner misplaces old documents or has them put away in a box buried somewhere in a storage bin. But y'know, a whole lot of us have no idea where such important papers are kept. We figure someone else knows — like maybe, the property manager, who … um … not the one we have now, the one before. Oh, that one wasn't the first one? Well, then who was? Does anybody know? Is that company still around? Read More »

Dec. 22, 2011 — A reader asks: The stock market has gone up and down a lot lately. Does that affect the value of the stock I own for my Brooklyn co-op apartment? Read More »

Aug. 23, 2011 — Do you live in a condominium conversion? Are your reserves underfunded? As a condo board you may be able to recover millions of dollars from your sponsor.

Sponsors of condo conversions really have only one material obligation: to provide sufficient money for a reserve fund. If they don't leave large enough reserves, condominiums may not have sufficient capital to perform necessary remedial construction work, leaving buyers with potentially uninhabitable homes. Read More »

Feb. 11, 2011 — Read the first in a series of easy Q&A guides to co-op / condo buying, selling and owning

Q. What are house rules?

A. "House rules" are rules governing day-to-day things you can and cannot do or have in a particular co-op or condo building. These typically cover things like laundry-room hours; separating your recycling; being allowed to have pets, to sublet or to take out a reverse mortgage; days and hours for move-ins and -outs; and fines for when rules get broken.

What's tricky is that "house rules" is an informal term, and can encompass rules found in different, separate documents. Read More »

March 3, 2011 — One in a series of easy Q&A guides to co-op / condo buying, selling and owning.

Q. What are common policies toward residents having pets?
 
 A. Some co-ops and condos allow pets. Others allow certain pets, or set limits on the number of pets. Others allow no pets. Some buildings have no policies, some have informal policies, and some have stringent policies. All of these are legal, subject to federal rules which we'll get into.
 
 In terms of size limit, many co-ops and condos take their cue from the New York City Housing Authority, which limits pets to 40 pounds when fully grown. Policies may also include fines for pet misbehavior, or a cleaning fee if a dog relieves itself in the common areas or on the sidewalk in front of a building, which city laws require the co-op/condo keep clean. Read More »

April 19, 2012 — Sharon Grubin and Deborah Lans owned a condominium apartment at The Gotham, at 170 East 87th Street in Manhattan. In what a court described as a "bitter dispute," the two sued the condo board,the board members and the managing agent for what the suit described as "abhorrent" living conditions and treatment by the condominium. Will the court dismiss the suit? What would your board have done? These are the questions in Grubin v. The Gotham Condominium. Read More »