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metropac - unprofessional and useless - unresponsive to shareholders, used vendors that overcharged, submitted fake bids to the board, and consistently paid bills late

We have them in our building, not perfect, but they do get the job Done. I would say they are a 8 out of 10. We have had some really bad mgmt companies by the way.

To become solvent will cost money to pay for past sins.

Cutting payroll cuts services, not always a good path.

Corrupt is a very strong word.

One may use fiduciary irresponsibility. If there is BD&O insurance, and one can prove any illegal action, the current board members can be sued. But, “stuff” you are relating does not seem to give rise to this path.

Drawing down reserve funds is not “illegal”, rather it is a stupid and irresponsible management practice to pay day-to-day expenses from the reserve fund. This also impacts your “individual” tax statements and tax basis at sale time as the reserves are typically set aside and treated differently.

So, financial controls are imperative, good practices re important. Audited statements are a must. If one suspects defalcations, then a forensic auditor may need to be engaged.

If the situation is as represented, there are many analogous postings herein these Board Talk forum. One needs to “search”.

One must wrest control from the incompetents (being charitable) and install professional managers. Remember, running a building is not running a fraternal club or a coffee klatch. Rather, running a building means running a corporation, acting with total fiduciary responsibility (e.g.; putting aside friendships, personal gains, personal desires, subjugating one to the whole). It means the Board acts like a Board.



.

Our Board is split 5 against 3, the five make up their own rules and regulations do not abide by our By laws, they give out fines which are illegal, they only do repairs for those who sign proxys for them, others get harrassed and fined. They have extorted signatures for their proxys. They allowed their friend the Super move out of the building into his new house in a different neighborhood, hired an incompetant to live in the super's apartment, pay him a salary plus union dues, free apartment,gas,electric,phone,cable service, free parking. All this just to replace the super who lives out of the building, still gets a salary without doing his work and we pay for his union dues, gets a free parking spot and if he does do work in the building he expects Shareholders to pay him for anything he does, including illegal renovations on our time. This is part of the corruption. The President of the Board has two apartments, one was her son's until he got arrested for dealing pot, she transfered his shares into her name without paying transfer tax. Her son now sublets without paying sublet fees of $25.00 monthly like other do that sublets. We found through our financials that she paid two Shareholders $3,000 for their proxys and labeled them repairs and maintenance. Since when do co-op's pay Shareholders for their repairs and maintenance and it happened to be the same amount. Yes, we intend to do a forensic audit when and if we win and take over, it will be well over due. When I said cut payroll, we don't need a body to live in the super's apartment that does nothing but sun bath outside our building and talk on his cell phone. As far as the Super we need one who will live in the building and work for the Shareholders. They breach their fiduciary responibility every day and yes we do have BD&O insurance which will be a path we will take with cause. They linked a checking account to the reserve account, when we have an operating account, why are bills not paid from the operating account? How we picked this up was when we went to management to do an audit all the monies that were paid out to the construction company was not disclosed becuase the reserve was in a seperate account held only by the Board's five members. How do I search for these analogous postings? I need to help the shareholders and save my home as well.

Thank you for your response.

Sincerely;

DD

This sounds, (all that I have just read from everyone)just like my building, it's awful, a forensic investigator might help but that costs lots of money. Is the Managing Agent just as bad? I would suppose so, because ours is since they only listen to the majority of the members. We have issues where our board made a separate board within. I would like to hear some ideas.

Yes, the management company is just as bad. We fired them three years ago. Just before these people were elected a new management company was brought in, when these people got elected they tried to corrupt the management company, they refused to participate in our politics, they did nothing for the building and waited till they got fired. These people brought in another management company, they tried to corrupt them, they refused and quit. Now they brought in the company we fired, because they were always corrupt and now they are once again violating their fiduciary obligations, putting on illegal fines to shareholders maintenance statements. They even brought in their own corrupt attorney to work against us.

We had to hire our own attorney to protect us and hopefully, we will win and overthrow them in the upcoming election.

Could you share the name of your attorney - we need to find an honest lawyer who is able and willing to take on a corrupt condo. We also need a forsenic accountant who would work for a percentage of monies recovered.

Our board stays in power by bribing a few influential owners who then sway opinion from their friends. These people are loud bullies and most owners don’t want to cross them.

Our board also stays in power because our management company is able to manipulate and strategize keeping their friends on the board to the detriment of anyone who votes against them. Who is your management company???

How about if everyone in a corrupt building writes a report to the Attorney General and sends it on the same day. We can alert the press that condo buildings will be doing this and we hope that potential candidates that hope to be elected to the attorney general’s office will investigate and prosecute corrupt boards of directors and corrupt management companies. If we can get this into the press and the attorney general’s office gets enough complaints, they could use condo corruption as a campaign issue. What do you think?

Excellent idea

Are you located on the UES. Sounds very like the building I reside in.

Billy.

Do you know anyone in the attorney general's office that would help with an out of control and corrupt board.

Dear Harry B. The Attorney General does not interced in privately owned Corporations. We are basically on our own. What you must do, is take over the Board, write letters send it around the building enlighten the Shareholders on what is going on in the building. Collect proxies and get an honest team together. Once you get them off the Board, hire a good attorney for the building and do a forensic audit and sue each member for willful misconduct, breach of their fiduciary obligation and other counts that the attorney and the audit will reveal. What State are you in?

Corrupt is a very strong word.

Reserve funds are there for rainy days ( unexpected repairs ) or for capital improvements.
The new board will have to work very closely with the management agent and the corporate accountant to review expenses and contracts. There's always a better deal out there.
You can keep an eye on Payroll and avoid overtime. You might be able to cut a shift here and there, but try to avoid cuts that would affect services that shareholders expect.

If you have doubts about the performance of your corporate attorney, CPA or management company ... you should consider replacing them.
It's important to surround yourselves with a good team that will work for your building and its interests.

This is going to be a long and time consuming process, if things are as bad as you describe.

I understand that corrupe is a strong word. Bills are being paid from reserve account. After reviewing the reserve account in Sept. 09 we had $115,952.42, than in Oct 1 thru Nov 30th. there was $79,384.00 how did they know in Oct, what Nov will have, the statement for Nov. disappeared. Which now leaves $36,568.42 missing without any explainations no checks written out in that amount. Comes December 09 a check was written out for $3,685.48 without explaination to who or what for. Why would you use the reserve to pay month to month bills, when we have an operating account.

Before they took over we had $244,000 in reserve, we refinanced our mortgage and took out half million dollars for construction. They used their own company to do the construction, which the scope of work was cut in half and most of the work that was to be done was never done. They breached old contactors contract which put a lien on the building for $150,000, breach contract for railings for balcony which cost us $5,000. Arrears in maintenance went up to $40,000 uncollected because these people signed their proxy's. Where is our money, they refuse to give our attorney the financial statements and other financial documents,bids for the construction, garage list etc. Our attorney had to file in Supreme Court to attain these records. The list goes on and on.

Why not go after the people that are stealing your money (board and management?) instead of laying off staff. After all why should a hard working staff member suffer because someone else is corrupt?

MRM.

My Goodness are you speaking of my coop. We are having very much same problems. Majority rules and as corrupt and self-serving as they come. Visited with Attorney General and of no help. If your situation is solved, please report back. All in all, shareholders are entirely at fault as they tolerate these incompetent board members and keep electing them year after year.

You need to overthrow the board. If you would like to know how we helped a building overthrow a board, and then helped the new board increase cash flow by $250,000 annually since then, without laying of staff, please contact me directly: tina@thecoopblog.com

This blog seems to be filling a vacuum. It seems to be offering objective assistance to shareholders who want to take action to create an educated, effective board in order to put their building on a sound long-term financial footing.

Is there a fee for this service?

Thank you for your comment. Yes, we were inspired from our own experience and our professional expertise as financial professionals. We therefore started a professional service helping other boards. We are happy to offer free advise or to be engaged for a professional review charging a small percentage of actual savings/increased cash flow. If engaged in a deep dive, no upfront cost/risk.

If your allegations are true then this is a police matter, it's called Grand Larceny. I do hope you have proof of these corrupt members. I would take all your paper work (evidence) that is backing up these serious allegations and bring them to your local police station/district att. office. What you are stating is a very serious crime. You will need no money by doing this just proof to back up what you are saying. Good Luck

So, we are not the only building with this problem.

Let us know how this works out for you?

That was my frustration emerging.

The "letter" was my frustration emerging....tongue in cheek....but some of us thought we might post it to rile the residents or rouse the residents to action – whichever is best.
. . . .
It is not the resident, per se, though the resident supplies the “liquid” bleach. Typically, it is the “careless and uncaring” household aide who causes the spill.
. . . . . .
But, we do have a “carpet dyer” that we call to effect repairs - restoring the colors. It isn’t 100%, more like 85% to 90%, but it certainly looks better and saves on wholesale removal and replacement. And, the dyed color survives repetitive carpet shampoo treatments with our power shampoo machine.
. . . .
Bonne chance!

Instead of doing, this I assume "Fake Letter" I would rather take action in a different way. For instance, I assume you have a laundry room; do you have security cameras in there if not why not? Get them installed if you do not, not only will it provide surveillance but it will also allow you to view who is in there. Have your porters do hourly inspections of each floor, have them sign off, and describe the condition of each floor. Usually there is an schedule/pattern when people or the help do laundry so get that noted. Also, get estimates for new carpets through out the building from 3-4 different vendors. Send out a FYI letter to the residents stating that their maintenance will go up or an assessment will be put into place to pay for the new carpet. That will show the residents that the board is serious about the appearance of the building. Also keep in mind that the bleached carpet is probably coming from a resident who fills up a cup with bleach enough for the laundry and some spills over, that’s how it has happened in my past buildings.

I would focus more on educating my tenants rather than "ban the bleach". It is not the bleach rather more so the careless individuls. Like the previous RM response, you have to educate your shareholders/domestic help and also make sure your staff are extra vigilant and support them when they report "an offender". I had pretty much the same situation in the property I manage and being pro active helped. Did you ever look into installing a cabinet in your laundry room where bleach would be available for use so there would be "no transportation" of the product from apartments. Just a taught.

ARM

It may not even be the tenants who spill the bleach, most tenants have house-keepers who do their laundry. The house-keepers really don't give a damn about the buildings carpeting. I agree that the bleach shouldn't be transported and like the idea of having bleach stored in the laundry room.

Hi! HabitatReporter here! The short answer is that it depends on your building. The longer answer is that you'll have to check with your board and your own proprietary lease, and even then it might not be clear. Check out this Habitat Magazine article from our February Digital Edition, called "Inside, Outside, Whose Side?":

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/habitat/201002/#/32

You can also access the article in the Habitat Archives:

http://www.habitatmag.com/archive/p_view_article.php?article_id=3889&next_page=p_article_list.php?returning=true&print_only=

You might have to copy and paste the URLs; Board Talk is sometimes a little funny about hotlinking. Hope this helps!

You can file in either one according to the results you want, monetarily or otherwise, for a breach you can also file in Supreme Court.

never heard of them, but try Eisenstein Realty ask for harry, they are really good.

Stay away from All Area. We had them for two years and they never paid our payroll taxes. We discovered this when IRS sent us the bill

Feel free to give us a call too! (or e-mail - mblevine@ebmg.com)

Our experience was horrible - didn't pay property taxes on time and didn't pay withholding taxes and we got stuck with the bill

As a resident of a coop and having to deal with Allarea, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THEM. Unprofessional, office staff not qualified, property manager had no idea about plumbing, electrical wires...let's say, he was no sparky. Tsao the president doesn't return phone calls and has no idea what his staff is doing.

Try contacting Matthew Adam Properties, Inc., Ira Meiter (212) 699-8900 They are excellent in property management.

Mike MacGowan, Resident Manager?

I always see you promoting Matthew Adams, is that the firm you work for?

No I work for the Co-op, Matthew Adam Properties, Inc. manage the building. They are a very good company.

We had take to court,plus they lied about certain facts,and kept our money we putting to special fund upkeep of the building. Parsons Plaza Condo.

We had take to court,plus they lied about certain facts,and kept our money we putting to special fund upkeep of the building. Parsons Plaza Condo.

You should look into Metropolitan Pacific Properties (www.metpacproperties.com). We would be happy to be of service.

Wow, so a bunch of mgmt companies are comenting on All Area. Nice. Very credible.

If you follow the thread the initial question was does anyone know of All area property mgt, so I am guessing most comments are in response to the question, are you with me. Something tells me you work for them.

MRM.

There is no credibility in this business. You have a bunch of mgmt companies writing lies about us. Yes, I am one of the owners at All Area. I would never do 1% of what is going on here.

Thanks everyone for showing your true colors.

And yes, one of my employees told me about this thread. Technically, this is for Board Members only.

Actually, anyone can comment on this board. It's an open-Internet site. Apartment buyers and sellers are on here all the time. I do sympathize if untrue things are being said, but you can trace identities pretty well through the IP numbers that come up on each top item. Do a Google search to find out how.

Thank You LeonardC. I know what you have mentioned. I do IT only, so I know all the tricks. I also know that most Cable, FIOS and DSL Subsribers on home plans use DHCP IP's and it would be very hard to track, so this would be very difficult. Our company uses a Static NAT'd IP so of course my comment can be traced back to me. But, I have nothing to hide.

My Recommendation would be not to allow this kind of talk, but I understand what Habitat is trying to do here. I know that an open forum like this can have its positives and negatives.

I was actually on this site yesterday, because we have not advertised with Habitat in over 10 years because our business grows via word of mouth and referals and not so much with advertising. Its just been that way lately.

I was just looking around and searched All Area to see how we come up in the Habitat. As I was doing that, a employee walked into my office and showed me a thread they saw weeks ago. Either way, I do hope people see through this. We have tripled in business since 2005 with no advertising whats so ever.

I do believe though that some advertising could be helpfull.

I don't know about management companies but I live in a coop that All Area managed and they did not pay our total employee withholding taxes for a long time, and the IRS charged us - they paid bills very late including our RE taxes which cost us over $6,000 in interest, and of course other bills late and otherwise were very bad managers - to get anything done I would have to call 311

If anyone is interested, there have been three responses to this thread in 2013. All of them were unsolicited replies to messages posted in 2010 and all of them were very uncomplimentary to All Area Property Management.

I will leave the drawing of any conclusions or conspiracy theories as an exercise for the reader... ;-)

In the real world board members are supposed to lead example (LOL). While it is easy to say sell and get the hell out of there it would serve no purpose. You have to ask yourself is it worth taking this person on?, Have others complained?

MRM

I think you should handle it just like you would if it were another shareholder, have mangement send a letter and then wait for them to respond to the letter. It don't matter if he/she is on the board or not.

Good Luck.

KITTY LITTER HAS BEEN KNOWN TO BE USED TO TRY AND COVER ODOR FROM DEAD BODY(ANIMAL/HUMAN). CONTACT BOARD OF HEALTH AND POLICE FOR IMMEDIATE RESULTS.
WORKED IN OUR BUILDING. SOURCE OF ODOR WAS DEAD CAT.

I agree with Mike. Have mgmt send your BM a letter. Also check your Proprietay Lease. If the BM doesn't reply or won't let mgmt inspect the apt, it's very likely that your Lease allows entry without a SH's permission if unsanitary conditions are strongly suspected or known to exist.

Our Lease even says if apt windows are excessively dirty and the SH won't clean them, the coop has the right to go in and have them cleaned. Pot, beer, etc. are a SH's private business, but bad pet and garbage odors from an apt are something else.

Some people aren't very clean and don't throw out garbage, soiled cat litter, etc. as often as they should. But as another poster said, there could be a more serious problem in your BM's apt. I wouldn't waste time checking this out.

offensive smells like garbage and kitty litter are one thing.
however if you have a personal issue against pot, well that is his own business, the same as someone having a beer of cocktail.
As the others have said , if it is that bad a source of offensive odor , everyone should man up and write the letter with your names. If the odor of mj was really that strong you might ask him to get a fan to blow sick it out the window and ask the super to put added draft control material on the bottom of the door or add sealer to the saddle if there is one.
i wouldn't put pot smell in the same category of rotten garbage and kitty litter which is a health/ vermin issue for the other residents.

Regarding your response, I feel that there is a great difference between someone smoking pot and someone having a beer. Having managed many properties, I have received complaints regarding "pot odor" on particular hallways. Nobody has ever called me to say that Mr. Jones is drinking a budweiser in his apartment. Simply put, if I have a beer at night nobody knows. If I smoke pot the odour/smell, more than likely will be detected and someone will complain.

MRM

Um, the building shouldn't have to put up with disgusting drug addicts. The smell (skunk weed) smells like the name and the pot smoker should make adjustments to his addiction. The managment has to send a letter siting Warrant of Habitability and that they are in default.
Just because some think it's o.k., look the other way or think it's someone elses problem, it's not. Get tough man!!! Stand up for your rights.

Hi everyone! HabitatReporter here again, this time with a response from Elliot Meisel of the law firm of Brill & Meisel. He says,

"The first issue is whether the building in question is a co-op or a condo. Each has a very different way of dealing with such situations.

The most important issue here is that board members should be above reproach. They should not be guilty of anything that other shareholders should not be guilty of. It is the responsibility of the board to hold its members to a higher standard. The other board members can try to persuade the problematic board member of that responsibility. Failing that, he or she can be removed from the board either with or without cause by the other boardmembers or the shareholders, depending on the by-laws of the building.

If the building is a co-op, the Board should first check the proprietary lease as the offending board member can be found in default and afforded the chance to comply or be evicted. In a condo, there is no landlord/tenant relationship, and the by-laws are poor at enforcing non-monetary issues, but in addition to having the board member removed from the board the condo can go to court to seek an injunction against the offending conduct, but that is difficult, will take a long time and be expensive.

Calling the Board of Health is a possibility but is likely to result in the building receiving a violation, not the individual unit-owner, leaving the building, rather than the board member, with the responsiblity for rectifying the situation though the owner may be backcharged for the fine..

When litigating quality of life issues, such as noise, odors or vermin, several things are important. Have more than one complainant; have the complaints in writing, have them documented over a period of time and have the complainants willing to go to court to testify as the courts will respect a personal appearance over signed affidavits and letters. "

Hope this helps!