MANHATTAN

Along with such other increasingly standard amenities as gyms, parking garages and rooftop terraces, many cooperatives and condominiums are striving for staff service on the polished level found in hotels. And to do so, many condo and co-op boards are turning to training, using classes and consultants to teach doormen, concierges and others the finer points of resident service — essentially good customer care. But where do you find them, and how well do they work?

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, The Plaza puts the pedal to the mettle, as the storied hotel-condominium sues to get rid of a CitiBike rack. Also suing: Corporations fighting Joan Rivers' condo nemesis Elizabeth Hazan (see last week's News Roundup), and Yoko Ono, who says her West Village co-op board is walking on thin ice. We've renovation plans a board won't like, the latest on mortgage rate-locks, and superstorm Sandy woes persist in The Rockaways, Coney Island and elsewhere.

Co-op and condominium boards have many reasons to lay out a five-year capital-improvement plan. Among other things, it helps you budget, it helps eliminate or lessen assessments, and it makes lenders look more favorably upon your building and its residents' apartments when it comes to refinancing. And for condo associations, Fannie Mae — a.k.a. the Federal National Mortgage Association — requires you have a capital plan or put aside 10 percent of the monthly common charges.

When a first-floor shareholder's floor collapsed into the basement, the board at Chelsea Gardens, a six-story, block-long, 170-unit co-op at 255 West 23rd Street, decided to excavate the filled-in space to raise some much-needed funds. With all of the dirt removed, the basement walls measured 13 feet high — tall enough to meet the legal requirements for occupation — and the co-op would have an additional 5,000 square feet it could either sell to shareholders on the first floor to create duplexes or offer to buyers as new units.

It's a story as old as co-ops and condominiums: Someone gets on the board, and someone else accuses him or her of using the board position for personal gain. And in the case of a condo in Alphabet City, as the area of letter-name streets in Manhattan's East Village is known, a lawsuit involving a roof deck installed without permission seems as simple as ABC. Or is it?

If you prepare for the worst, you're better off in the long run. Except when you're not. A few years ago, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) suggested that every co-op and condo's financial statement contain information about the remaining useful life of — and the replacement cost for — all the building's infrastructure. Makes sense, right? Not to some attorneys and accountants.

Recent news affecting co-op and condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. The aftermath of superstorm Sandy lingers, Concourse Village workers may strike and a co-op / condo board-member group meets with mayoral candidate Joe Lhota. Plus, lot o' news for boards this week, as one court ruling partly limits the Business Judgment Rule and another says a particular type of Airbnb rental isn't illegal hoteling. And experts answer a board member's own plea: "What Can I Do About the Tyrants on My Co-op Board?"

At 51 Fifth Avenue, the co-op board came into possession last year of a 2,000-square-foot two-bedroom apartment overlooking a church. The board enlisted a broker who told them to put the apartment on the market for $1.5 million as is. That's when the property manager stepped in and put a stop to it.

Last year, a rent-controlled tenant approached the co-op board of her building with a welcome proposition: If the board would buy her out, she would leave, and they could sell the apartment for a handsome sum. "She got a big pile of money, and we will get an enormous pile of money," says Carl Tait, president of the board at 152 West 58th Street, near Central Park. When all is said and done, this 33-unit co-op will clear $600,000 in tax-free cash. The building is currently under contract with a buyer for $950,000 for the two-bedroom apartment.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week there's a lot of news for boards in particular, with a growing wave of scammers falsely claiming disability in order to have dogs in a no-pet building, with the latest on publicly naming residents in arrears, with the expansion of no-smoking buildings, and with converting a club space to an apartment for resale. Plus: families buying multiple apartments together, broker-free sales and Judge Judy (above) buys in Sutton Place.