Start with contacting the attorney. You'll need to know your legal rights and the best way to approach the issue so you get the maximum $$ owed to everyone.

The attorney should also be able to help you determine if there's any statute of limitations involved, which might affect your approach to the situation.

The attorney may be able to determine if the management company committed fraud if they lied to you. If so, that could provide you with leverage in your discussions/negotiations with the management company.

Get all the info before you contact management so you know what your chances are.

I do hope you fired and changed your managing agent, lawyer and most of all your accountant. This is one reason why managing agents must be changed every so often. They get too comfortable. The Habitat has great information on all managing agents, so do your research and interview them very carefully. I also would advise you to hire an independent auditor to go over your books. If by chance your managing agent has taken your Tax Abatement for 12 yrs. this is called Grand Larceny. Best of Luck

I don't think they could take our money for I called the City and for Condos the abatement is automatically deducted from the tax bill...(we converted from coop to condo)They never get to touch it, as apposed to a coop it goes to the building and management is suppose to give you credit on your maintenance, That WAS done to us as a coop, The sponsor management put the money into the building to run it instead of giving it to us, The sponsor and that management are LONG gone! We now have no sponsor now..

started this string about out management deceiving us all these years (over ten years ) that condos do not get property tax abatements. I am a Board member. I found it the Property tax abatements were about $1,000. a year in reduction of taxes. Seem the new Board thinks the management is just lazy and scoffed it off and does not want to do anything about it , cheating the unit owners of all this lost monies. I was thinking to go rouge and contact an attorney to see what can be done, than contact the unit owners and start a class action lawsuit ? This management has done not so ethical things in the past. This board seems not to care. What is your opinion??

I remembered reading this article and although they were self managed, they were being embezzled by the co-op' s bookkeeper/office manager and a few others were profiting from the situation.

You might find the action they took to resolve their problem helpful.

https://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/Legal-Financial/2016/2016-February/Self-Mis-Managed

https://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/Board-Operations/2016/2016-August/Lindenwood-Followup

This is from the DOF website. It looks like the Star abatement remains with the unit until not the previous owner until the end of the tax year.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/finance/benefits/landlords.page

Exemptions (FAQs)
Must I report the sale of my property?
Adjustments to exemptions are automatically made as a result of the sale of your property. The recording of the deed, except for a life estate deed, will revoke the following exemptions: Basic or Enhanced School Tax Relief (STAR) Senior Citizen Homeowner Exemption (SCHE) Disabled Homeowner Exemption (DHE) Veterans or Clergy Exemption

When will the automatic adjustment from the sale of my property go into effect?
The STAR exemption remains on the property until the end of the tax year (June 30). All other exemptions listed above, are canceled as of the next quarter after filing. Deed recordings require no action by a seller.

@queens Thank you for your reply!
What I really want to know is about the Coop Condo Abatement.
I am still searching for legal precedents if it remains with the unit or not.

Thanks!

You can not claim these benefits they remain with the unit until the above expiration dates.

I have provided a link to the DOF online inquiries for abatements and exemptions.

Their response time has greatly improved or maybe I have just been lucky.

Hope this helps..


https://nycdepartmentoffinance.dynamics365portals.us/SignIn?ReturnUrl=%2Fcreate-case%2F%3Ftopic%3DCo-OpCondoTaxAbatement

I believe that you are entitled to receive the co-op tax abatement because it was your primary residence at the time in question. I think your management company is incorrect.

If the DOF listed you as the owner, then you are entitled to the money. Hang on to that letter from the DOF to the co-op that states you are the owner.

The co-op receives a lump sum for the abatement which is then distributed to the OWNERS who were living there during the time frame in question. Your DOF letter verifies this.

However, it seems that the problem here is with the management company. Even though you're no longer the owner, you were the owner during the abatement period in question.

You may need to consult with an attorney since the management company doesn't seem to be cooperative about the situation, but you were the owners during the abatement period. That's who gets the abatement. The owners during the abatement period.

Seems like the management company just needs to give you a check for the lump sum abatement owed you, and then recover the money from the new owners who incorrectly received YOUR abatement. But, that's their problem, not yours, and they created the problem in the first place.

I'm guessing that the management company doesn't want to be bothered with the extra work, so that's why they don't want to do it.

Good luck!

Stick to your guns. The abatement belongs to you.

@queen
Thank you for the link. I sent an inquiry yesterday. Hope to hear from them soon.

@Marty
Thank you for your input!
What you said is exactly how I feel and thank you for your encouragement.

I purchased and sold a coop in the same month, January 2019, but both were after 1/5.

I realized that I lost my abatement when I received the maintenance bill in April from the new coop. Since the previous owner of the new coop was an investor, there was no abatement left for me, but of course there was the assessment. I had to pay it out of pocket.
Closing was after 1/5 & I missed the status date, so there was no abatement for the current tax year, so I will have to pay another assessment out of pocket again in April.
In the meantime, the Purchaser of the old coop received last year's and will receive the current tax year's abatement, because I was the qualified owner on 1/5, 2019.

We didn't discuss about the abatements at closing, but our sales contract has the following rider.

In the event that there is any refund on any real estate taxes which is attributed to the time period in which Seller owned the unit, such refund shall belong to Seller.
Purchaser agrees to cooperate with Seller in connection with obtaining such refund. If such refund is delivered to Purchaser, Purchaser agrees to hold same in trust and to promptly remit
such refund to Seller. This provision shall survive Closing for one (1) year.

So, I contacted the Purchaser but their lawyer answered that the Purchaser didn't receive a check, only a credit and that was offset by assessment so they gained nothing.
I think this is an irrelevant argument, but what the Purchaser's lawyer is saying it that because they didn't take the money but the management company gave it to them, they owe me nothing and receiving the credit was not their fault.

I found the following letter in the closing package of my current management company, Douglas Elliman.
https://www.ellimanpm.com/package_templates/927d9b71ad6fcac483c7a461204e7967057a9901/preview?resource_id=319

I wish my old management company had this kind of letter at closing so that my lawyer or I wouldn't have forgotten about the abatement.
There must be a reason why Douglas Elliman has this letter for both seller and purchaser to sign.
They don't want to have an issue like I am having.

I will contact the old management company again requesting legal resources if they believe the abatement should stay with the unit and the new owner is entitled to receive it.
I know that's what's happening everywhere, but until I see the legal precedent, I don't want to give up my abatements. It's almost 5K.

My point is simple.
The Purchaser would not have been able to benefit from the Abatement, had we not been eligible residents last year and this year.

I am sharing my story for someone who encounters the same problem as I have.
I will keep you updated.

Thanks again for your support.

OG, thanks for sharing your story. I found it very informative and know it will help others. I wanted to ask you about the January 5th date. In the end the few extra$$$ are not worth the aggravation...

Happy that you found the the link helpful. I had an answer in 48 hrs. Also, when all else fails

Marcel Dixon
NYC Department of Finance│External Affairs
2120602-7004-212-602-7050

DixonM@finance.nyc.gov
Regards,
Queens

BTW, I am not making light of the "Principal". Had you been aware, you could have sold your unit for $5,000 more. I have gone to battle for much less $$$ so keep on Truckin!!!

I'm a little late to the party, but I respectfully disagree with Marty and want to post my reasons.

Even though the seller was the owner during the abatement period and is listed as the owner of record on the abatement list from the DOF, it is the purchaser who will be responsible to pay any offsetting assessment imposed by the co-op board. In order for this to remain a zero-sum transaction, the purchaser needs to receive the abatement to offset the assessment.

--- Steve

Steven,

Thank you for the correction. You learn something new everyday on this site.

1) The property owner has the legal responsibility. https://www1.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/19-152.shtml

2) Not exactly sure what you're asking here, but if the owner doesn't register, I assume he wouldn't be paying taxes on the property. That won't end well for the owner once the city finds out.

If the property is not registered and someone gets hurt (trip and fall), then the ownership will inevitably be disclosed and it's more bad news for the owner, especially if he doesn't have insurance.

Thank you so much, Marty.
Are you, by any chance, a lawyer?

I am not a lawyer.

Thank you!

Whereas the general sidewalk maintenance is the responsibility of the property owner, if there is a tree along the curb and the tree has raised part of the sidewalk making it unsafe, the NYC Parks Department will repair the sidewalk.

JG - Any idea which agency has jurisdiction if a fire hydrant sits smack dab in the middle of a raised sidewalk?

We've worked with our City Council member for 2 years and no city agency will take responsibility. They all say "not my job."

I'm checking with the Board's attorney before I disclose anything.

I worked for a law enforcement agency. This sounds like a 3rd party request for info, meaning that the original agency with the info (the co-op) would have to give permission to the agency requesting the info (DOB, NYPD, FDNY, etc) before the info could be disclosed.

To me, confidential information that would be of assistance is not necessarily the same as information that is mandatory to disclose. I do not think the confidential info SHB disclosed.

See what your lawyer says.

Maybe I watch too many police procedurals (binging “ Bull”) but indulge me.
What if the police are urgently investigating a crime in an apartment and can’t locate the shareholder. A Board member has the purchase application that includes family contacts, employer information..) it can’t be shared without delay?

That's why I made a distinction between "being of assistance" vs. what you now describe as "investigating a crime." Big difference.

If someone needed to enter the apartment, then I'd say that most co-ops have emergency contact information for shareholders, including the name and number of a person who had an extra key.

As a Board member, I have every legal obligation to protect our shareholders' privacy. That's why I'd be checking with our Board's attorney before I disclose any information a 3rd party.

You must have had a specific circumstance in mind when you asked your question. Why don't you just ask about it and maybe someone can give you an absolute answer?

A hypothetical -What if the police were going door to door in the
building, on a weekend, asking for information on the whereabouts of a shareholder who is a crime suspect. If a Board member had the
purchase application with family contacts, and good friends who wrote letters of recommendation, could that be disclosed to the police?

Does your board know you are contacting the co-ops attorney for personal reasons Marty? Who ever's question this is, the police can check the names on the buzzer console or call the super/managing agent. Everything is posted in the lobby entry way. So the police, fire dept. or family and friends have the names and apt.#s Whether you rent or live in a co-op or condo.

I would certainly check with my fellow Board members to get their input and get a consensus before contacting the attorney.

By doing so, it becomes a Board decision and not just my own.

In my hypothetical, the police KNOW the name of the shareholder. But he is a crime suspect and they are urgently trying to find him. Add to the scenario that the Managing Agent’s office is closed.

Since the police are looking for a suspect, I think the Board should cooperate with the police in any way possible to help them do their job.

Considering all the different possibilities and permutations of requests and responses, this is a good question to ask your board attorney *before* you have to deal with it directly, possibly in an emergency. Your attorney should know, or at least be able to find out for you what you are required to disclose and under what circumstances.

This would also make an excellent article for Habitat to have one of its legal contributors put together. Just sayin'... ;-)

I live in a 8 unit coop. A few years ago we had the neighbors from hell - they were running a carpentry shop from their basement using all kinds of VOCs and toxic chemicals; in the midst of this, a tree from the same neighbors rental building fell on my fence and into my backyard and the landlord would not do anything to rectify the situation. In addition, he was renting to a college students who did not understand the basics about how to be good neighbors in terms of noise, parties, etc. Most of this affected me, being located on the first floor on the side of the building next to this horrid neighbor. All this was very distressing and the coop board did not want to do anything to help make my space safe and livable because it really did not affect anyone else in the building.
In my efforts to reduce chemical exposure to myself and my son, I asked the board to assist. They would not and said so adamantly despite my efforts to engage them. At one point, in order to try to further make my case at a shareholders meeting, I asked if they had seen the photos that I had taken with the wood working products stashed right in the window outside my bedroom. The sarcastic response by the soon-to-be president was "I've seen it 100 times". At the same meeting, the current president made the announcement, unprovoked "no one wants to work with you". Then her husband called me disingenuous person. Things continued downhill from there to the point where I have been bad-mouthed, shunned and excoriated at various meetings that followed. I expressed that the ongoing bad mouthing of me at meetings was akin to bullying and scapegoating. (There are 2-3 board members that have been particularly ugly).
With all that said, I would like to know if there is anything that I can do to compel them to stop pouncing on me and attacking me publicly and personally for saying something that they simply do not agree with. Following a great deal of research and reading on the subject of bullying, I have learned that repeated intentional humiliation is a form of bullying. Is there anything that I can do legally to stop the public excoriations and allow me to come to meetings without the anxiety of public humiliation and would compel the board to stop these types of public and personal attacks?

?????

Hmm... I hope you realize that no one can possibly understand what in the world you're talking about. And that this is not the forum to ask amorphous questions.

David - if you were thinking of renting or buying in the building, sounds like you got your answer

The Truth about rights to shareholder list.

According to the BCL 624, Yes shareholders have a right to review the list with names and addresses, number of shares and date that ownership became effective otherwise known as the record date.

However the person requesting the list is required to
sign an affidavits stating that this list will not be sold or used for any nefarious purposes.

So basically if you are approved to review the list which by the way the key word here is review. They do not just give you a copy of the shareholder list. They allow you to review it in the office where it is being housed and make extracts, in other words bring a pen or two and a ream of paper.

If you are denied the right to the S.L. because lets say you want to share negative information about a board member, then the only way to get access to it is probably with the help of an attorney.

This question has been asked so many times through the years, clearly not very many people have been successful in obtain a copy of the shareholder listing.

There is a  podcast by Robert Baverman

Titled: What documents are we required to permit unit owners/shareholders to review?

that you should find helpful.

https://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/Ten-Questions-About/Legal-Advice-for-Co-op-Condo-Boards

Sounds like you just really need to get rid of the super, ASAP. Questions come to my mind... Union/Nonunion? What is the manager doing in all this?
Why would you want to sell the apartment? How many units are in the building? Do you need the handyman also, or just an adept superintendent?

REAPLLC- We are Union Managing agent needs to also go they are also to comfortable after 12 yrs. the agent also calls the super before they come to our building. Thats when the super starts to do things so he can see him doing work.
If we don't have a live in super and higher a company to be on emergency call 24/7 Why not sell the apt? We have a great handyman and porter, like I said the handyman does 99% of the supers job.

There are two NYC laws related to this. Depending on the size of your building and the number of units you can be required by law to have a live super.

I did a full podcast with this with Greg Quattlander from NY Plumbing, and you may find it useful. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/20-local-law-152-2016-gas-inspections-greg-quattlander/id1316217394?i=1000457877512

Valid questions and concerns. We have also wrestled with the long term effects of cell towers.

I agree that there is no definitive long term info out there and because of that, we have declined to install it in our co-op. For us, it would be like taking blood money at this time.

I'm no expert by any means, but I wonder how much 'radiation' would penetrate downward as opposed to outward from the building, thinking I would feel better under it than across the street from it.

I *am* an engineer, but unfortunately not with the specialties you are looking for. :-) The reason we might notice a proliferation of cellphone towers is not because the Deep State (or your conspiracy group du jour) is trying to exercise mind control by pumping more radiation into our frail physiques, but the opposite. GSM cellphones, the current and almost universal technology, uses less energy than CDMA cellphones. Thus you need more towers for the same coverage area.

GSM is much more directional than CDMA, and JG is correct that as much energy as possible is beamed horizontally. Verizon, AT&T and the like don't obtain any revenue by turning an apartment building into a giant microwave oven. The antennas are aimed, and I would bet there is shielding at the base of the antenna to prevent any leaks into the building.

We're constantly bombarded by radiation from many sources. Cosmic radiation, solar radiation, CT scans, dental X-rays, etc. We've been exposed to all sorts of radiation for so long that the Zombie Apocolypse would have occurred long before now.

But don't believe me. Here's a link to a July, 2019 article in the NY Times about this very topic https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/science/5g-cellphones-wireless-cancer.html . Another good website for debunking conspiracies, myths, urban legends and such is snopes.com

Anything new and not easily understood will frighten segments of the population. So let's look on the brighter side. 5G radiation irradiates and kills the coronavirus. How about that for a benefit!! Prove me wrong! <chuckling>

That all sounds great, but the issue I have is that a cell carrier performed an RF test on our rooftop and within the penthouse areas and found that the radiation bleed is more than 10X the permissible or regulatory limits for safety. Their solution? If they place signs inside and barriers outside, it somehow becomes legal.
Sorry, this has nothing to do with conspiracy, its blatant greed and should be criminal to permit anything over any reasonable (whatever that is) limits. There is no denying that RF of all types are harmful to the human body (which is a virtual electromagnetic antenna). 5G spectrum have been used and weaponized by the military for years.
but that, along with the deep state theories aside... Q
BTW - whos checking the fact checkers? Snopes is soros funded!
So the original posted question was placed as an inquiry as to how to best limit liability, exposure and to see what others who have sites are doing in regard to this,,, I am still seeking someone to create a baseline RF safety report independent of the carrier.

you are not alone in having shareholders that are disheartened.  I have the same situation in my co-op,

There have been many people who have run or wanted to run for the board but once the current board members and property manager got wind of the candidates, the retaliation began.

Little by little people started to back away, so far away that they stopped coming to meeting or giving their proxies to be voted on their behalf. 

It is difficult to get these shareholders back once they have had their cars damaged, their beautiful gardens that they planted destroyed and were last on the list for any repairs or any type of service.

However, we did get a petition together by gathering a brave group of people from various sections, going door to door to get signatures.  We were successful and with our request for a Special Meeting following the guidelines of our by-law, we were able to stop the few real mostly dummy cameras from being installed. BTW the cameras were from a friend on the board.

As far as the shareholder list section 624 of BCL, I believe you can review the list even write down information but the list only shows the name number of shares and possible unit number. 

Shareholder addresses are to be kept and recorded but the shareholders addresses are confidential except to the person(s) who have fiduciary responsibilities, agents or attorneys and would be needed if legal action was brought against the board.

If a shareholder wants their name redacted from the list seen by other shareholders, an affidavits can be drawn up to protect their privacy.

In the link below it states “For starters, according to the BCL (Section 607), “Upon request, any shareholder is entitled to receive a list of all shareholders [in the building], with the addresses of any non-residents.”  It only mentions address of non-residents.

https://cooperator.com/article/i-got-rights/full

I worked for a large financial institution.. we did not even give the shareholders name. They were referenced by a number. Since co-op are governed by the same laws. I would say you would not be able to see addresses.

https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-access-to-shareholder-lists-who-and-how