To Protect Your Building's Rep, Stay On Top of Repairs

Feb. 12, 2016 — Suppose a rent-regulated tenant in your co-op has a nasty habit: rather than making repair requests to the board or the super, he picks up the phone and dials 311. As a result, your building has a backlog of complaints with the city – which can tarnish a building’s reputation among potential buyers. What to do?

“No matter how you slice it, the correction of violations is ultimately a building owner’s responsibility,” real estate lawyer Lucas Ferrara tells the Ask Real Estate column in the New York Times.
Furthermore, rent-regulated tenants are not usually bound by the terms of the co-op’s proprietary lease, so the complaining renter is probably not required to follow the building’s process for making repair requests, adds Bradley Scott Silverbush, a lawyer who represents landlords.

Bottom line: to silence such complainers – and protect the building’s rep – boards need to be aggressive when it comes to addressing repairs. This is yet another case where procrastination is not an option.