Written by Richard Siegler and Dale J. Degenshein on May 21, 2013
In December 2007, the original sponsor of 75 East End Avenue's 1974 co-op conversion sold Simon Elias and Izak Senbahar unsold shares representing 18 apartments. The proprietary lease states that unsold shares stay "unsold" until an actual occupant buys them. Because Elias and Senbahar did not purchase the shares for occupancy and never lived in the apartment, their shares remained "unsold." Selling these unsold shares required only the consent of the managing agent, but the co-op board also had a policy, the "financing rule," that said the board wouldn't consent to a sale if the buyer proposed to finance more than two-thirds of the purchase price. And therein came the hitch.