THE STEINER BUILDING

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a Chelsea condo board has won its battle with a downstairs gym, New York City investigates possible fraud by Lower East Side co-op board members and a Queens co-op says it's not soulless. The Comptroller says the City goes too easy on water-bill deadbeats, raising rates for the rest of us. An expert answers: Are condo boards as powerful as co-op boards? And Law & Order's Richard Belzer sells his co-op. Dun dun!

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, we already knew that Class 2 properties — co-ops, most condos and rental buildings — carry an unfairly higher tax burden than Class 1 properties such as single-family homes. But a recent Furman Center panel of academics and other experts — including a former Dept. of Finance commissioner and the deputy director of the New York City Independent Budget Office — quantified just how much: Class 2 is taxed at a rate almost five times higher than Class 1. Check out the first article below for details.

Among the other news this week: a co-op's attempt to evict a 78-year-old over minor hoteling and a condo board's ongoing suit against a bad-neighbor gym.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents.

This week, a co-op shareholder in Queens complains about a neighbor's noise and gets heard in court, and a condo board in Chelsea sues a commercial gym over weighty noise issues. A newspaper says almost half the buildings that object to Cite Bikes don't get them, but you can't wait till you know they're coming. Bike 22. What's the latest luxury amenity? On Park and Fifth Avenues, it's private restaurants just for residents and guests. Plus, Leonardo DiCaprio buys a "wellness" apartment in Greenwich Village. Yeah, we didn't know what that was, either. Sounds nice, though.