August 20, 2010 — If a co-op disturbs the painting and wallpapering in an apartment in pursuit of repair, may the shareholder recover money for the cost of restoring it? Normally you'd think not – generally plastering and priming is all that's required. But a special circumstance required a judge's decision, in Baker v. Bay Terrace Co-op Section XII, a Queens County small claims court case. Read More »

August 24, 2010 — Our condo association was close to going belly up. I didn't know it at the time, and no one else, including the condo board, seemed to know it either.

I didn't think there would be problems when I bought into our 166-unit condominium, built in 1951. It was supposed to be my home away from home, a one-bedroom apartment that my wife and I could spend time in when we weren't at our house in Pleasant Valley, N.Y. We moved in soon after my retirement from IBM where I spent 36 years doing almost everything from fixing computers to becoming a senior manager. I hadn't thought about the board or the management company when I started living there. But then construction work on the front of the building seemed like it was going on forever, and the condo had received multiple shutoff notices from Con Ed. That made me feel like someone was not paying the bills. Read More »

Aug. 27, 2010 —  A residential co-op on Manhattan's Upper West Side has achieved a rare victory in silencing a rooftop bar whose loud music into the early-morning hours made its shareholders' lives intolerable. How the co-op board did, and how it persevered through more than a year of effort, can prove instructive for other co-op and condo boards fighting bad-neighbor bars, cacophonous clubs and other noisy nightspots. Read More »

August 16, 2010 — When the co-op board at the 16-unit building at 54 East First Street in Manhattan asked its managing agent to shop for a new mortgage so the co-op could refinance and take advantage of lower interest rates, it fortuitously found one that not only did that, but allowed the co-op to fund necessary upgrades and make the building greener simultaneously. Your cooperative apartment house or condominium can do likewise — even in this tight lending times. Read More »

August 3, 2010 — Richard Silver got word early this year that a co-op in The Bronx was having a problem with its water tank. The tank wasn't leaking water. It was leaking money — because New York City had rewritten the rules governing rooftop tanks that contain drinking water, and an unsuspecting co-op board and property manager had gotten blindsided. It could happen to your co-op or condo, too, if your board or your managing agent isn't aware of the small change that could cost you big bucks. Read More »

July 30, 2010 — The economy may be showing signs of improvement, but that doesn't mean that co-op apartment buildings and condominium associations aren't under financial stresses. Some co-op board and condo boards have been proactive — but some, hopefully not yours, have ignored the reality of their situation.

John R. Math, until recently the owner of the 21-year-old real estate and property management firm Associated Property Management in Lake Worth, Fla., gives you 10 real-world, common-sense signs that your co-op or condo is in financial trouble and needs to take action immediately to avert disaster. 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 »

July 23, 2010 — Co-op and condo boards and residents can get ready to breathe easier — and to possibly pay through the nose. New York State Governor David Paterson on Tuesday followed a path blazed by Maine and Connecticut as he signed into law legislation mandating low-sulfur heating oil.

Beginning July 2012, the sulfur content of No. 2 heating oil will be limited to no more than 15 parts per million, down from the approximately 2,000 to 15,000 parts per million typical today. Achieving this will require oil companies to refine No. 2 oil more so than now. Whether this will result in higher costs for consumers depends on a plethora of factors, including the supply of oil generally as well as economies of scale as refineries ramp up to produce low-sulfur oil for, now, three Northeast states. Read More »

July 20, 2010 — Michael Richter, former owner of Charter Management Realty of New Hyde Park, N.Y., was arrested on July 13 and charged with five counts of second-degree grand larceny and five counts of first-degree falsifying business records, according to a statement from the Queens district attorney's office. He is also charged with embezzling nearly $949,877 in tenant maintenance fees over a six-year period from five co-op buildings in Jamaica, Forest Hills, Rego Park and Elmhurst. Additionally, he is accused of providing falsified business records to disguise the thefts. Read More »

July 16, 2010 — Any good co-op board member or condo association director already knows all the timeless lessons: Go over your monthly financials. Keep your operating account and capital reserves separate. Be aware how unflattering most of us look in mug shots.

But there are timely lessons as well, torn from today's headlines — or at least from the community-news section of the paper. And Joe West has seen those headlines and those sections for 35 years, working for and with community associations and producing educational videos to help board members run them properly. Here's his 2010 take: six critical lessons we all should glean from current events — co-op / condo division… Read More »