NEW YORK CITY

Despite New York State's property-tax inequities being widely acknowledged, both Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York City Mayor Bil de Blasio have moved to dismiss a class-action lawsuit that contends single-family homeowners get preferential treatment over both renters and co-op and condo owners. CapitalNewYork.com reports that according to the Citizens Budget Commission, the owners of one-, two- and three-family homes paid 15 percent of the city's property taxes in fiscal year 2014, though they comprised 46 percent of the city's real-estate value. The lawsuit, the website noted, found that the landlord's tax burden for an $800-a-month studio apartment in The Bronx is $2,880 — close to what de Blasio pays in taxes on a million-dollar Park Slope townhouse. CapitalNewYork.com posted Schneiderman's filing here and de Blasio's filing here.

Any co-op or condo board or their managing agent who needs to put up scaffolding or a sidewalk shed — which is to say, everybody — as well as those doing energy alterations, those putting a cell-phone antenna on the roof, or those using Directive 14 when allowing residents to combine apartments, among other things, now can find the relevant New York City Code and zoning regulations at the click of a keypad. The Department of Buildings has created an online tool to help people navigate the labyrinth of laws in order to more quickly obtain a permit.

A New York couple, fashion designer Anya Ponorovskaya and lawyer Wylie Stecklow, got "married" in a symbolic ceremony in Mexico in 2010. They had no marriage license, and their officiant was a dentist who got his minister certification over the Internet. Still, the couple referred to themselves as married on the purchase contract of their Manhattan co-op apartment and on a mortgage application.

So when the relationship didn't work out, Ponorovskaya last year filed for a very non-symbolic and for-real divorce. Why? Perhaps because the apartment is titled in Stecklow's name alone — even though, Ponorovskaya says, she invested significant money and "sweat equity" in its renovation. What the couple's co-op board thinks of all this, the lawsuit Ponorovskaya v. Stecklow doesn't say. As for what the judge in this recently decided case thinks of all this, you can read law professor Joanna L. Grossman's wry but learned column about it at Justia.com.

A house divided against itself can stand, actually, in the case of a couple's divorce — transferring ownership to one or the other is relatively easy in the allocation-of-assets part of settlement negotiations. Not so when a couple owns a co-op, writes Ronda Kaysen in The New York Times, since a co-op board has to be involved. This means you not only have to prove that you're divorcing — and, yes, sleazy sorts have tried to gain ownership of a co-op by claiming such to credulous boards — but the remaining spouse has to prove he or she can afford the mortgage and maintenance, requiring a sort of re-admission review. And there are lots more questions to consider, including a perennial for those innocent souls who will also be affected: What will you tell your doorman? No, seriously, he's got to know if the other spouse can still go up or needs to announced.

Most divorcing couples who own a co-op or condo apartment generally handle the breakup with a certain amount of decorum, observing legal requirements and civility and, hopefully, moving on with their lives. Then there are the kind who forge signatures on documents and much, much worse. Condominium and co-op boards caught between dueling soon-to-be-ex spouses need to watch out for behavior you might not expect or even believe, and to take nothing for granted.

From the first inklings of marital discord that surface as screaming matches in the lobby to the protracted endgame where couples divvy up their apartments, co-op and condo and boards are often caught in the middle of divorces. In one recent case, a co-op board president received a note from a shareholder warning him that her husband might try to forge her signature on documents. A short time later, the husband delivered doctored transfer documents to the board for approval. In another case, a small condominium in the Flatiron District couldn't collect maintenance fees from a couple for more than a year while the two sparred over finances from abroad.

The property shared by a divorcing couple is invariably a bone of contention. To avoid getting caught in the middle of a dispute over who has rights to use the apartment, co-op and condo boards should get any requests in writing and have them reviewed by the building's attorney. For example, if a wife tells the board her husband is no longer allowed to enter the apartment, she should send a written request with supporting legal documentation.The building's lawyer may respond with a letter saying the board will attempt to honor a request if it is supported by a legal position. But unless there is a restraining order, the building cannot bar a shareholder whose name is on the apartment title.

"Foreclosure" is a four-letter word for most co-op and condo owners, but after you're done cursing your bank, your bills, your finances and a cold and indifferent universe, take heart: There are "5 Reasons a Foreclosure Notice Doesn’t Mean You’ll Lose Your Home," writes attorney Steven Wagner, a principal of Porzio Bromberg & Newman, in BrickUnderground.com. These range from the technical — "Your lender doesn’t actually own your mortgage," since many loans have been repackaged and resold — to the folksy-but-true — "The bank messed up," which covers a multitude of sins and slip-ups. Since the article also gives you defenses that could help you keep your apartment, homeowners should read this piece on foreclosure forthwith. (And so should boards, since a bank's mishaps can scuttle a board's foreclosure filing against those in serious arrears, a financial threat to any cooperative or condominium.)

The board of managers of a condominium had a serious common-charge collection problem caused by a defaulting unit-owner. There was no equity in the unit since it was purchased at the top of the market and the mortgage exceeded its current value. What are the steps to take in a situation like this? The step not to take is to give up and do nothing.

We represent a condominium in New York City that has been suffering with an abandoned unit, still owned by an owner long since gone, and a bank foreclosure filed in 2009 that remains "on hold" and shows no signs of it concluding soon with ownership transferred to the bank.