MANHATTAN

Condominium associations, unlike cooperatives, can't turn down a prospective purchaser except in one way — by exercising its "right of first refusal" and buying the apartment instead. It doesn't happen often, since condo boards usually have just a short amount of time to come up with the cash or let the sale go through. And if the association doesn't have enough money on hand and can't get a conventional loan in time, what's a board to do?

To quote Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior: "You come to me."

Nigen and Yvonne Vosper lived at 555 W. 160th Street in Manhattan on December 24, 2008, when Nigen slipped and fell on ice as he was leaving the building at 7:55 a.m. Note the time, because it becomes important. The following month, he filed a lawsuit for personal injuries, alleging that the building had "created a dangerous and hazardous condition on [the] outside landing by removing a step that was there and replacing it with a downward sloping landing, without a handrail."

Updated March 13, 2014 — Psst. C'mere. I got a deal for ya. You buy these commercial condo spaces that I'm sellin' as the condominium sponsor and I'll tell ya what: You don't gotta listen to the board. You buy these units, you got veto power over any board decision that affects you. That means you can tell 'em not to raise yer common charges. And it's all perfectly legal. Just sign here on the dotted line. Or I guess these lines aren't dotted anymore. OK — sign here on the plain straight line….

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, why didn't anyone tell Co-op City's residents there were outbreaks of Legionnaires' Disease? Why did a community board recommend a restaurateur's liquor license over the objections of people living in the same building? And why did a smokers'-rights group butt out of a condo forum? Plus: You can't take your kid's stroller into the passenger elevator? Seriously? 

Phase one was straightforward, at least on paper. There were no mechanicals under this first section of sidewalk, so it was a simple matter of replacing the vault's corroded cast-iron beams and pillars with steel I-beams, setting a metal "cue deck" on top of them, pouring and waterproofing a concrete slab, and finally pouring the sidewalk on top of it.

Every successful cooperative or condominium needs an Ideas Guy, the one who says: "We need this, we want this, and let me tell you why." At the 325-unit Brevoort East at 20 East 9th Street in Greenwich Village, 31-year co-op board veteran Jay Silverzweig is it. His own mantra for what makes a project succeed consists of three words: "conception and execution." Recent cogeneration and Local Law 11 initiatives are among the many works he has overseen since moving here in 1982. In fact, he describes infrastructure projects and financial affairs as "my little niche in the building."

The structural engineer who drew up the original plans called it "the biggest and most complicated private vault job in the history of New York City." Now the 30-unit condominium The Worth Building, a former industrial loft at 73 Worth Street, had to rebuild a nearly hundred-year-old, two-story vault that covered all the underground mechanicals, waterproofing it and covering it with nearly 300 linear feet of sidewalk. The price tag was a formidable $1.6 million. But money was the least of the obstacles.

Updated Feb. 17, 2014 — The Sheffield 57, a nearly 600-unit condominium at 322 West 57th Street in Manhattan, has sued its managing agent, an engineering firm and others following the accidental discharge of thousands of gallons of heating oil after what the condo board called "a series of missteps that created a 'perfect storm'" causing $3 million in damages, cleanup costs and other expenses.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a 63-year-old woman in a Fifth Avenue co-op has had the same Maytag washer in her apartment for 20 years with permission and without trouble. Now the co-op board won't approve a replacement unless it's one of three hoity-toity brands. Well, lah-de-dah ... Maytag's not good enough for 'em? Let's go to court! And court may be where Trump Village West board president Igor Oberman might wind up, since a New York City Department of Investigation report accuses him of less-than-ethical things. Plus, Co-op City has an asbestos problem. Or does it?

The Antoinette learned the hard way that when it comes to co-op and condo boards, all directors need to pull their own weight and keep some people in check. For the 58-unit co-op, at 7 East 35th Street in midtown Manhattan, this meant coming out from under the thumb of a board president who convinced a board to vote to save him money at the expense of the co-op.