QUEENS

UPDATED March 22, 2013 — Following an interagency raid by investigations who took files and computers from five local heating-oil business, two lawsuits have been filed by real-estate concerns charging that the companies have been selling oil diluted with waste product. Authorities and the plaintiffs claim such tainted fuel oil has been delivered for years to both commercial and residential buildings.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. As the year ends, some things don't change. To wit: Two Financial District condo boards and Pace University have filed a lawsuit to keep a city Probation Department center out of the neighborhood; co-op shareholders at Dunham House on the Upper East Side are fighting a retailer who threatens to block their views; and a condo board in Flushing, Queens, is getting sued for its treatment of a Buddhist church. Man, who hates Buddhists? Plus, one of the New York Giants is renting out his condo apartment during Super Bowl week since, let's face it, the Giants have no reason to stick around.

The process of terminating the super begins with what is colloquially described as "writing him up." This can take a relatively short or relatively long time. "Documenting incidents is key," says Nadir Maoui, vice president of a 150-plus-unit co-op in Sunnyside, Queens, that recently fired its superintendent. The board spent almost two years preparing a list of offenses. "We went from [oral] warnings to write-ups with the union, and we went as far as suspension," Maoui explains. "If you go for union arbitration with no [prior] warning [to the super] whatsoever, the first thing they'll ask is to give him a chance. You have to show you gave him warnings and can't deal with him anymore. Otherwise, it's your word against the super's."

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, 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.

Plagued by leaks in its large underground garage, the board at Gerard Towers, a 563-unit cooperative at 70-25 Yellowstone Blvd. in Forest Hills, was seeking solutions. The situation was simple but frustrating: an Olympic-size pool on the building’s ground floor was leaking into the garage below it. Not only was spalling occurring on the walls, but the water was harming the structural integrity of those walls – and damaging the cars as well. The situation had gone on for nearly a decade, with various stopgap remedies being employed to stem the tide, but a permanent solution eluded the co-op.

Ronald Kaye moved into the sprawling, campus-like Windsor Oaks apartment complex in Bayside, Queens, in the 1960s. Back then, the garden apartments in 53 two-story brick buildings sprinkled across 40 acres were rentals. Windsor Oaks went co-op in the 1980s, and Kaye, an accountant, eventually became a shareholder, then a board member. Today, he's board president. When he joined the board in the 1990s, it had already established minimum sale prices as a way of protecting the value of all shares, a controversial practice known as "floor pricing." But as the property aged, disparities arose. How did this board find something of a fair solution?

Budgets, believe it or not, are living, breathing things. They're not etched in stone, and sometimes you can move components and budget lines like chess pieces in which the right piece at the right time moving the right way can make a pawn a queen. Think we're being overly metaphorical? Well, just ask these two experienced and utterly practical and pragmatic property managers, as they describe how they stepped in and moved those pieces and gave condominium and co-op boards some much-needed breathing room. Because not only are budgets living, breathing things, but but so are our buildings.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, The Plaza puts the pedal to the mettle, as the storied hotel-condominium sues to get rid of a CitiBike rack. Also suing: Corporations fighting Joan Rivers' condo nemesis Elizabeth Hazan (see last week's News Roundup), and Yoko Ono, who says her West Village co-op board is walking on thin ice. We've renovation plans a board won't like, the latest on mortgage rate-locks, and superstorm Sandy woes persist in The Rockaways, Coney Island and elsewhere.

Recent news affecting co-op and condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. The aftermath of superstorm Sandy lingers, Concourse Village workers may strike and a co-op / condo board-member group meets with mayoral candidate Joe Lhota. Plus, lot o' news for boards this week, as one court ruling partly limits the Business Judgment Rule and another says a particular type of Airbnb rental isn't illegal hoteling. And experts answer a board member's own plea: "What Can I Do About the Tyrants on My Co-op Board?"