LEGAL/FINANCIAL

Does the board have the right to use a unit-owner's terrace to make repairs to the building? Probably. Does that right continue even if delays keep a unit-owner from using the terrace after the end-date agreed to by the board? Again, probably.

In Natalie and Geoffrey Richstone v. the Board of Managers of Leighton House Condominium, the court looked to the condominium's declaration and bylaws to decide not just whether the board had the right to use the terrace, but also whether the unit-owners had to remove their wooden installations. 

Natalie and Geoffrey Richstone own apartment PH-2B at 360 East 88th Street, known as the Leighton House Condominium. The board wanted access to the apartment and the adjoining wooden terrace (the Richstones had exclusive access) to install rigging equipment to perform water tests and repairs. Although the court decision does not offer much pre-litigation background, the Richstones granted access until March 31, 2014. The rigging, however, remained in place after that date. The Richstones sued the condominium, claiming breach of contract, trespass, and nuisance and demanded that the condominium pay $10,000 per month for its use of the terrace. For its part, the condominium board counterclaimed, demanding that the court order the Richstones to remove the wood terrace. There were a series of motions by both sides (and two decisions by the court) — basically, each side wanted the court to award relief based on their claims and arguments.

Read more

It was a few years ago — when Michael Williams was board president at the 190-unit co-op on Wallace Avenue in The Bronx — that he got "the call."

It was from a vice president at Marine Midland Bank, the holder of the building's underlying mortgage. The banker had grim news: he reported that "the sponsor was not paying the mortgage and the building was in trouble." For Williams and the rest of the board, it was "a wake-up call." Indeed: if the building defaulted on its mortgage and went into foreclosure, shareholders could end up losing their only assets and still be responsible for their personal mortgages. It would be, in the words of a veteran real estate lawyer, "the worst of all possible worlds." As one distraught shareholder at the co-op put it: "You don't want to lose your investment, your future, your children's future."

Read more

Speaking of Tribeca, check out 5 Franklin Place. Work there is finally reaching the end, reports YIMBY. But it's what's on the inside that counts, and despite the outside showing "the cladding and window installation are complete, interior work appears to be ongoing." It shouldn't be long, however, for this 20-story building with 53 condominiums to be finalized. Wonder what the ticket price will be.

Photo of 5 Franklin Place by Tectonic

Read more

It sounds like one of those Internet "clickbait" headlines, doesn't it? Except in this case that headline is pretty accurate. In a sampling of banks large and small, Chase, Citibank, and TD Bank all refused to comment about this "foreclosure trick." What are they going to say? "Congratulations! You got us! Condo boards really can foreclose on apartments in arrears faster than we can, and thus gain leverage over us."

Read more

Okay, so a discussion about balancing budgets may not win any Most Exciting Topic awards, but knowing how to do it can translate to good financial health for your co-op or condo building.

I Was Told There Would Be No Math

Hey, being on a board can't be all glitz and glamour! You're going to have to crunch some numbers. But don't worry! We're here to help break it down for you. So, first things first: a good budget covers the building's annual income and expenses and attempts to maintain a strong reserve fund for future capital projects. And you'll need to differentiate between "operating" and "non-operating." 

Read more

It's always been about a race to top in New York, hasn't it? When the Chrysler Building was being constructed, William Van Alen — the architect who designed it — was in a race against H. Craig Severance's building at 40 Wall Street. After Severance increased the height of his building and gave it the title of the world's tallest building, Van Alen got the green light for the Chrysler's telltale 125-foot-long spire. It beat 40 Wall Street as the tallest building in the world (not to mention the Eiffel Tower as the tallest structure). But the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet would hold the title for only 11 months, because then rose the Empire State Building, and then… You get the picture. Fast-forward to the present, and not surprisingly, it's still a race to the top. Who will dominate New York City's iconic skyline? Lately, it's the residential giants — the luxury condo towers, such as the ones on Billionaires Row. The Real Deal sized up the "supertalls" recently: "At 1,396 feet high, 432 Park overtook Extell Development's 1,004-foot-tall One57 earlier this year. But Extell is now on track to reclaim the title. Extell's latest "supertall" building, dubbed Central Park Tower, is scheduled to top out at 1,550 feet in 2019. What's more, the tower will reportedly have a record $4.4 billion sellout." But, asks TRD, can that race really continue? Is it feasible (or wise) for these tall, skinny towers to keep rising all over the city? Maybe there will be a slowdown, but as long as there's a way, we bet developers will keep trying to reach higher.

"Chrysler Building at night" by David Shankbone. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Read more

There's a gas leak. And in swoops Con Edison to shut the gas off and leave the dreaded red tag behind. You may be gasless for weeks, if not months. So what happens next?

Well, the first step, and probably the most important thing that your board can do, is to start communicating. It sounds so obvious. The challenge at the beginning, though, is that you don't have anything to say except the obvious: we have no gas. 

Read more

Despite it being in Tribeca, 149 Church Street isn't exactly memorable or remarkable. "With a bland façade featuring windows pockmarked by inefficient air conditioning units," writes YIMBY, "its demolition will usher in a brighter and more productive future for the lot, and while its use is still the same, 30 Warren will certainly be both denser and better than what existed before." That's right. It was so meh, that it's not just getting demolished to make way for new shiny condos. It's getting a new address: 30 Warren Street. According to YIMBY, "Cape Advisors is developing the site, while Post-Office Architectes is serving as the project’s design architect. The building will stand 12 floors tall, and will have 44,830 square feet of condominiums and 5,578 square feet of ground-floor retail [and] takes up the entire blockfront on Church between Warren and Chambers Streets." So, what do you think? The extruded elements, which YIMBY compares with 12 Warren Street, another condo rising just a block away, make the building look like a Jenga tower. But maybe that's just us. 

Rendering by Post-Office Architectes

Read more

Jeff Glasser loves his annual shareholder meetings so much that he has them twice a year. "We have one official meeting, which is our annual meeting, and then we have a budget informational meeting the first week of December," reports the board president at the 128-unit Normandy co-op in Forest Hills, Queens. "In November, the board makes a final decision as to what the budget will look like, and if and how much of a maintenance increase there might be. Then we present that budget to the shareholders at our meeting in early December."

You heard that right: a board member who actually enjoys the building-wide get-togethers, those sessions that occur every year, which usually deliver frustrating and/or debilitating challenges to boards. 

Read more

New York City is beyond crowded. And sometimes the city's layout doesn't really help matters. Take this week's Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times, for example. A bus rider in the Upper East Side writes, "A sign in front of an East 79th Street condominium building reads: 'Please do not touch the poles and do not stand underneath the awning as it blocks the entrance to the building. Thank you.' This sign is in front of the M79 bus stop. Is this legal? Does the building 'own' the sidewalk? Can it enforce this request? Should the condo remove the sign?" Oh, boy… Ronda Kaysen responds that while the condo owns the awning, it doesn't own the sidewalk beneath it. Technically, it can't stop anyone from standing there, but it's also "free to post a request on its private property — [just as] a pedestrian standing on a public sidewalk is free to ignore it." It's easy to see how tense a situation like this can get. A better solution, suggests Kaysen, might be for the building and its residents to request a bus shelter by contacting the Department of Transportation's street furniture department. It's a win-win for all. Bus riders will get the shelter they seek and building residents won't have blocked access to the entrance. Sometimes a little thinking outside the box makes life pleasant for everybody. 

Read more