MANHATTAN

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, the Attorney General brings down the hammer on a real estate attorney we hope wasn't yours, Hell's Kitchen residents want a homeless woman to get the hell away, a family feuds over a Park Avenue co-op, and we've an update on that Florida condo where faith-based discrimination against unmarried straight and gay couples made national headlines. Plus, for condo and co-op boards, we've the latest on the City Council bill for regulating co-op admissions.

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Aug. 22, 2013 — The co-op board president and two building managers of the monumental 360 E. 72nd Street, between First and Second Avenues, tell how they swung a refinancing that paid for an $8.5 million refacing from white-brick to red-brick, plus  $3 million dollars in additional upgrades -- not only without raising shareholders' monthly maintenance, but putting $12 million into the co-op's reserve fund.

“The building is solid,” says Larry Hohlt, the retired lawyer who also heads up the nine-member board at what he calls a “classic prewar” — this 107-unit East Village co-op.

For proof, he points to a worker who tried to drill through a wall – only to break his drill bit on the brick that lay beneath the surface. “They built these buildings very, very well,” he says of the Depression-era property. “The building aged gracefully.”

When a prospective buyer wants to view the minutes of a condo or co-op board before purchasing an apartment, it's important to take the request the seriously. "If the board declines," says David L. Berkey, a partner at Gallet Dreyer & Berkey, "I think that can detract from the saleability of the apartment or may affect the pricing,"

Most boards release an edited version of minutes, or a summary, that leaves out specific details on a variety of topics, such as financial issues, potential litigation, and debates over purchases and contracts before they are made. Very few boards go to the other extremes: detailing and releasing everything from the meeting in their minutes or releasing nothing at all.

My wife and I lived in a house in Brooklyn Heights for almost 30 years before moving to 40-50 E. 10th Street nearly 12 years ago. It's a great building, with a wide range of residents, a healthy assortment of children. Old-world charm and new-world amenities: two private gardens and a cardiovascular exercise room. It is also walking distance to both the East and West Village. To keep the property sound and attractive, two years ago the co-op board created a 10-year capital plan.

When we purchased our small co-op apartment in Chelsea more than 20 years ago, the biggest appeal to us was the deck and garden area that came with it. Hidden behind the main 10-unit building, the dominant feature of the small courtyard was a large, old ailanthus tree. It attracted rare and unusual birds, resting on their migratory paths. It gave us shade in the summer and leaves to sweep in the fall. Its only downside, we thought, was that we had to scoot around its massive, elephantine trunk when bringing food from the building to our outside dining table.

For 20 years, we enjoyed our tree. Then, one day last winter, we noticed something peculiar: The tree's roots were breaking through the ground, coming up and pulling our wooden deck up with them.

This week, the co-op board of the publicly subsidized Lindsay Park Houses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, used taxpayer money to send letters endorsing disgraced former Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who — despite sexual-harassment charges by eight women and having to resign following a state Ethics Commission investigation — is running for City Council. But it seems that's legal — as is, apparently, a Florida condominium board's refusal to sell to unmarried straight or gay couples "living in sin"… and since gays can't marry in Florida, that point's especially problematic. We don't usually note news outside the metro area, but real-estate discrimination against those who don't share your religious beliefs seems more than parochially important. And in other news: Parents like playrooms as an amenity!

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, if you look into the windows of people's homes, you're a peeping Tom ... unless you take photographs and put them up for sale. Then it's legal to spy on people because, hey, it's art! So ruled Judge Eileen Rakower after Tribeca  parents sued a voyeuristic creep — the New York Post's word — who shot pictures of their kids and sold them for up to $10,000 each (without paying or even getting a release form from the unwary models.) Homeowners beware.

We've also a lawsuit between condo-owners over what they say is their building's overpriced gym, a reminder that clothes make the doorman, and did you know that New York City apartments aren't considered "luxury" until they cost $3 million? Plus, for condo and co-ops boards, tips on noisy neighbors and meeting minutes.

At 1150 Park Avenue, an 89-unit Manhattan co-op, the board decided to convert to a dual-fuel system that could run on No. 2 oil or natural gas, says Daniel Storr, the board treasurer. Storr reports that his building and others in the neighborhood had a deal with Con Edison to service the area as long as they made necessary internal changes to accommodate gas service.

Dumpy. Once upon a time, that was the best word to describe the lobby at 1150 Park Avenue, a Carnegie Hill co-op in Manhattan that featured imitation 18th-century green fabric, English-style furniture in the lobby and wallpaper that imitated stone in the vestibule. "The lobby looked dilapidated, tired and old," recalls board president Lillian Brash.