LINCOLN SQUARE

Co-op and condo buildings earn cash rewards by reducing electricity use during peak demand events, contributing to savings and conservation efforts.

With carbon capture, Manhattan tower has turned a liability into an asset.

In a court decision that may shine a light of hope on condo boards — which unlike co-op boards have a huge lack of options when apartments go into arrears or foreclosure — a judge ruled last week there are instances where a board may legitimately exercise "self help" and lock a delinquent owner out of his or her apartment. As the New York Law Journal reports, the family in Penaflorida v. The Copely Condominium and Club was not entitled to return to its foreclosed-on apartment in the Upper West Side's Lincoln Square neighborhood since, the judge wrote, "return would be futile and ... would only forestall the inevitable eviction." As well, none of the immediate family members were living there — a niece was staying — and the owners admitted they were holding onto the place solely to drag out a bankruptcy auction.

The foreclosure had occurred in 2009 and the owners by now owed $100,000 in arrears and $200,000 in interest, the Law Journal said. This is an example, the board's attorney, Adam Leitman Bailey, told the paper, of foreclosed condo owners trying to "game the system" and "live for free" in the apartments. Maybe this ruling is a first step into having that stop.

May unit-owners transfer their condominium unit when to do so avoids foreclosure of that unit to pay a debt? 

Sofia Frankel owned a condominium apartment at 160 West 66th Street in Manhattan. She had been a broker at Goldman Sachs when Jeffrey and Lauren Sardis entrusted her with some $19 million to invest on their behalf. They remained clients when Frankel left to join Lehman Brothers but, by 2004, complained that she had fraudulently churned their accounts, causing them more than $9.5 million in losses. The Sardises began an arbitration against Frankel and Lehman, and about two weeks before Lehman filed for bankruptcy, the court awarded the Sardises $2.5 million, holding both Frankel and Lehman responsible.