MANHATTAN

The practice of turning apartments into hotel rooms or bed-and-breakfasts has become so common that it has attracted the attention of legislators, the State's bar association and the State attorney general. Co-op and condo board members, as well as apartment-owners concerned about non-vetted, non-background-checked strangers roaming halls and stairwells, should know what's going on, in order to keep the pressure on elected representatives.

Patrick Kennell, president of the board of directors at The South Star condominium, offers advice on how to handle illegal bed-and-breakfast setups in your building. Kennell and the board spent two years litigating a case against Sophie Grishanova, a unit-owner who refused to stop renting her apartment to short-term guests.

The New York Post is reporting that Tudor City is under attack for trying to evict a mentally ill woman. The co-op and a 51-year-old woman's longtime boyfriend have been fighting, both in court and out, since 2006, when the first eviction attempt came. Frank Mazzocchi, 77, claims Tudor City is trying to spiff up its image and has actually ordered the woman to stay indoors, exacerbating her condition. "Most of the board members were heavily invested in apartments in the building .... and therefore had a personal interest” in “appearances and activities they found undesirable,” Mazzocchi alleges in court documents. Each side is denying all accusations, and the board's attorney declined to comment.

Condo sales are up, price per square foot is up, and someone, somewhere, just sold their unit for a cool $43,000,000. (And yet, somehow, it’s not the most expensive unit per square foot!) 

CityRealty’s quarterly “CityRealty 100 Report” is out, and the numbers are eye-opening. According to the report, the first quarter saw 169 apartments change hands at what the firm has determined are the top 100 condominium buildings. Average price per square foot was $2,272. Compared to the same time frame last year, that price has increased 19.4 percent

The National Cooperative Bank (NCB) has announced it originated $18.6 million in new loans in April, with co-ops in Manhattan accounting for more than 50 percent of the bank’s financing activity in the region, according to Edward Howe III, Managing Director of the NCB New York office. Howe personally arranged the largest loan of the month, a $3.6 million first mortgage and a $750,000 line of credit for a co-op in Forest Hills, Queens. 

A five-member panel comprised of a condo-board president, a management-company executive and representatives of Con Edison, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the New York City Mayor's Office last week warned co-ops, condos and other residential buildings that incentives for green upgrading have limited lifespans, and that boards intending to participate in any particular program should do so before that incentive expires.

Is the Nagle Apartments Corps.' financing scheme the new "go to" for co-ops and condos?

Several years ago, the 111-unit co-op in Manhattan's Inwood neighborhood — a three-building complex also known as NaBors Apartments for its locations on Nagle Avenue and Bogardus Place — voted down a proposed flip tax that would have raised much-needed funds for capital repairs. So the board began to charge shareholders a monthly assessment as a way of generating much-needed revenue. This decision stuck, and Nagle's assessment is now essentially permanent.

Negotiations between the co-op and rental sections of London Terrace in Chelsea have come to a complete standstill, according to DNAinfo. The issue at stake is access to the historic complex’s pool and sundeck and how much more the co-op side wants the rental side to pay for the privilege.

The Tribeca Trib reports on how the rental tenants of 22 River Terrace, in Battery Park City, are being forced to move out with only 90 days’ notice. Why? Because new owner Centurion Real Estate is converting the building to a condominium and acting on an unusual clause in most of the units’ leases that unilaterally cancels them.

Brick Underground also reports on the 22 River Terrace condo conversion, including a guide to what a conversion process usually entails.

Previously reporting on this story: the Battery Park City community newspaper The Broadsheet, with its title-says-it-all story "Rental Tenants Facing Eviction for Condo Conversion Allege Bad Faith by Developer."

Want to ensure a quorum at your next annual meeting? Do a lousy job throughout the year.

"That's the irony," notes attorney Phyllis H. Weisberg, a partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads. "When everything is running smoothly and everybody's happy, it's harder to get a quorum."

"People come from far and wide if there are contentious issues," agrees longtime co-op board member Grant Varga, of the 57-unit 17 West 67th Street in Manhattan. "But when everything is going smoothly, people say, ‘What's my motivation to go?' So we work hard to convince them to show up." So how do you ensure that your building has the required quorum to make the annual meeting legit?