NEW YORK CITY

June 24, 2011 — New York struck a blow for clean air when officials declared that pollutant-heavy No. 6 heating oil would be banished from the city's oil burners by 2015. But an unwelcome surprise awaits condo associations and co-op boards and property managers preparing to upgrade their boilers: You may be faced with a much earlier deadline than you thought.

A standard process of co-op boards and condo associations — the pro forma filing of "tax certiorari" appeals to get real estate tax refunds for the cooperative and for condominium unit-owners — just got better. A common problem for condo boards in particular has been how to find the right owner to give the refund to, since a unit-owner may have sold and moved away in the years between a board filing for the real estate tax refund and when the refund is actually issued. But now, a new database in New York City may put an end to the hunt by giving the hunted the information they need in order to contact the board.

As an attorney, a great deal of my time and efforts of late have been devoted to representing several "new construction" condominiums where board control was just turned over to the new unit-owners from the developer. As is unfortunately typical with new-construction condos and gut renovations, the unit-owners were encountering problems with the building's common elements because of poor construction.