MANHATTAN

Water can sneak into a building from anywhere. At 40-50 East 10th Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, it was joints in the front sidewalk allowing water to flow in and cause problems."We were worried about flooding damage and erosion, and water-main problems that caused flooding in our building,’ says co-op board president Larry Hohlt. So how did the 114-unit building handle it?

Bill Cosby famously asked, in a comedy routine, "Why is there air?" And investor James Brady — no relation to the recently decease gun-control advocate — has now spent at least seven years in court and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees asking his co-op, "Where are my air rights?" The answer, New York courts have responded time and again, is that he doesn't have them, even though the offering plan for the commercial co-op at 450 West 31st Street, where he owns a penthouse suite, gives him "the right to construct or extend structures upon the roof or above the same."

Justice Shirley Kornreich, reports the New York Law Journal, dismissed Brady's most recent actions as “a near-perfect example of frivolous conduct" and reaffirmed an earlier decision that the co-op own but the case remains fascinatingly complex and actually quite entertaining — and that's even before you get to Brady's website, BullyJudges.com, where he claims "corrupt" New York justices have behaved with “depraved indifference” and “deceptive behavior” So we're not actually sure if he's calling the judges bullies, or if "bully judges" is a suggestion....

Married couple Steven Phillips and Diane Paolicelli Phillips, two lawyers — and yes, this sounds like a joke setup, but we have lawyer friends so we won't go there — have a 75-pound collie-German shepherd mix, Marcus. That's a big dog. And while it's 12 years old and arthritic, there have been "multiple incidents" involving the pet, co-op attorney Matthew Leeds, of Ganfer & Shorer, told the New York Daily News. In June 2012, for instance, he nipped a neighbor’s finger. So, the board wants the dog to wear a cage muzzle — presumably only when it's out of the apartment until it's out the front door, which really doesn't seem like a terribly long time or ordeal.

But the Phillipses, who got a different kind of muzzle that the board said still allowed unacceptable behavior, refused. The board moved to evict the couple — by today, as a matter of fact, though only giving them notice on Aug. 1 — and in return the couple sued. The irony? The ailing Marcus might not be around by the time the suit ends.

It seems to be theme week this time around in Ronda Kaysen's "Ask Real Estate" column in The New York Times, with three items involving renters in a co-op or a condo. First up, a Murray Hill co-op board and its super won't provide proof that a rule no one told a departing renter about really exists. Next, a SoHo loft owner — which is a lot like a condo owner; just go with it — with a tenant needs to know just how far his repair obligations go in terms of precisely matching the paint in the loft below after a leak. Not sure why both the question and the answer refer to a "subtenant" rather than just a tenant, which is what the New York City Loft Board calls them, but whatever. Finally, a condominium sponsor and a condo board in the West Village appear to be at odds — stranding rent-stabilized tenants who need repairs done.

Frieda and Howard Dropkin, shareholders at The America co-op at 300 East 85th Street, owe $13,000 in maintenance-payment arrears, the co-op board alleged in a court case decided late last month. Given the arrears and a couple of related issues, the board had moved to evict the couple. But, as the New York Law Journal reports, Judge Jack Stoller wasn't having any of it once he found the board couldn't explain how it calculated any of its shareholders' maintenance charges, let alone the Dropkins'. He also rejected the board's argument that the calculations didn't matter since the "voluntary payment doctrine" would have established the maintenance charge, noting the Dropkins had paid different amounts each month. The board's attorney told the Law Journal it was reviewing the decision to determine how to proceed.

Divorce is never not problematic. Yet while there are many bad things about it, there are good things as well — a new life, new beginnings, Having it stop a foreclosure proceeding on your condominium apartment after you haven't paid common charges for nearly three years is not, however, one of them.

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.

Robert P.J. Booher, the board president of 230 East 71st Street, a 60-unit co-op between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan, doesn't like surprises. "We want to pinpoint where our vulnerabilities are," he says. "The roof is 10 years old. OK — how much more time can we get out of it? What are we going to do? The pointing is good, but it's been 20 years since we last did it. When should we do it again?"

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, it's co-op shareholders vs. rental tenants at Chelsea's London Terrace over access to a pool. We've also news of a new, retroactive property-tax abatement; the Brighton Beach bathrooms get put on hold; and as Stevie Wonder sang, we're very superstitious, writing's on the wall — just not the wall of the 13th floor. Plus, for boards, co-op taxes are up, and Concourse Village workers are up in arms.

The East River Housing co-op on the Lower East Side remains embroiled in a federal lawsuit involving three shareholders' claims that a dog brought into the no-pet complex was a medical necessity for mental-health issues. As previously covered by Habitat, New York housing courts — generally tenant-friendly — and appeals courts all consistently ruled against the shareholders, finding their requests for disability accommodation to be dubious. The courts, as also covered in Habitat, are aware that scammers have misused disability anti-discrimination laws simply because they want a dog. Here, two of the disability claims came only after the dog was discovered — and a doctor withdrew his support for the third.

Yet after losing in the courts, the shareholders, as The New York Times recently followed up, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is now suing the co-op on their behalf. Speaking for beleaguered boards all over, East River's attorney told the paper, “The board has no problem accommodating pets. The problem is with people trying to sneak in their animals and then thinking they can pull a fast one when they get caught.”