Contact Eric T. Schneiderman. He's the Attorney General for New York State.

Unfortunately, Alvin's answer is incorrect. The Attorney General will only handle disputes involving the sponsor. Once the sponsor is no longer in control, the only legal way is through the court system. This is expensive and time consuming. I am working with several groups to get an "Ombudsman Bill" passed which would give co op and condo owners a government agency the ability to hear non sponsor major complaints. We need owners to get on board by discussing this bill and putting pressure on your State elected officials to back this most important bill. It was introduced in the Senate by Liz Krueger.The more owners we get to push this the more likely we can get it passed. We need everyone to make this a priority if there is any hope of getting the State to help us. Contack Senator Krueger's office in Manhatten for more information.

Typical is 3 - 5%

What surprises me is that the Board is allowing the Super to do any renovations. If anything goes wrong, the Coop/Condo will be responsible jeopardizing their insurance and/or finances.
GB

What surprises me is that the Board is allowing the Super to do any renovations. If anything goes wrong, the Coop/Condo will be responsible jeopardizing their insurance and/or finances.
GB

Where is your building located? You need to call 311 every time you see an illegal activity by the Superintendent (including plumbing and electricity.)
This will help save your building. You cna do it anonymously.

This happened in my building as well. all the board managers were super chummy with the super, who happens to own a construction company. In return, the super gives them good rates and the board managers all skipped the renovation paperwork. But closely into your by-laws. Renovation without board approval is a violation of the by-law; it doesn't matter who performed the renovation. If you are told otherwise, then your board is acting in bad faith. I would sue the board if I were you.

shouldn't it be the other way around ?
we have a bonus for the managing agent.

You are not obligated to give them bonuses. They have their own budget from where they bonus their employes.

Hi...we give our primary contact at the management company a gift...he does most of the work for us...and that gift is money.

How much would be appropriate to give the managing agent of a luxury building ?

Someone on a very intelligent coop board in the upper west 90's recently told me that, after much research, they decided a dual burner was the way to go.

A dual fuel burner is the smartest choice when looking to ensure the value of the investment. Having dual fuel capacity allows for options...obviously having one or the other doesnt. Having dual fuel burning capacity still allows the use of one fuel; such as gas on a firm rate.

Too often boards and mangement companies are hesitant to accept gas, when available on a firm rate....they feel they are "locked in" with no options. If firm rate is available and eliminates any construction costs associated with a #6 to gas conversion project TAKE IT! If you opt for a TC rate when Firm is available you sacrifice all entitlements and are NOT eligible for any incentive/rebate programs from either utility company or NYSERDA. Take the gas on a Firm Rate, purchase if necessary a dual fuel burner and reap the benefits.

I think if you allow subleasing indefinitely the bldg will attract a whole different kind of buyer; investment buyers. Your bldg will turn into a rental type bldg but you will be able to sell more apts. So it depends on the goal of the coop. Do you want predominantly owners or a more transient constituency.

our co-op by laws say that a non-owner can not serve as president.

Depends on your bylaws and other governing documents. In my coop, the sponsor still hold 3 of 7 board seats, none of which is filled by a resident or owner. In the past, we have had the spouse of an owner elected to the board and served as president.

depends on the coop's house rules. In our coop a roommate requires board approval and that requires a package. All you can do is remind your family friend that his coop might have some kind of roommate rule.

Dear North Fork Investor, I wonder why you are promoting what might be misinformation?

n today's tight housing market one way to make your income meet the rent is to have a roommate. While this can be an excellent way to find (and keep) affordable housing, here are some things you should know:

If you are the only person who has signed the lease, in addition to your immediate family, state law allows you to have one roommate (i.e. an occupant of the apartment who has not signed the lease). Your roommate's dependent children are also permitted. Any lease provisions disallowing a roommate (and dependent children) are illegal. If your lease originally had two or more tenants you may have an additional roommate or roommates provided that the total number of tenants and occupants (excluding occupant's dependant children) does not exceed the number of tenants on the original lease. For example, if three tenants signed the original lease and one moves out, you may have a roommate to replace the departed tenant.
If your apartment is rent stabilized, you may only charge your roommate(s) a "proportionate" share of your rent. A proportionate share is determined by dividing the legal regulated rent by the total number of tenants named on the lease and the total number of occupants in the apartment - not including the tenant's spouse, family members or the roommate's dependent children. For example, if you live with your spouse and two children and only your name is on the lease, and you have a roommate who has one child, only you and the roommate are recognized for the purpose of calculating a proportionate share of the rent. You may therefore charge the roommate up to 50% of the rent.
Check your roommate's background thoroughly. If you don't get along, and your roommate refuses to leave, you do have the right to evict your roommate. However, if the roommate refuses to leave, the ensuing eviction process could be both painful and expensive. Remember, until the eviction process is complete you may have to live with this person.
If you join someone as a roommate (i.e. your name isn't on the lease) another set of problems can crop up. In most instances, if your roommate (the leaseholder) leaves, you have no right to keep the apartment. The primary tenant might also decide to temporarily sublet to someone, in which case you will suddenly have a new housemate not of your choosing.

depends on the coop's house rules. In our coop a roommate requires board approval and that requires a package. All you can do is remind your family friend that his coop might have some kind of roommate rule.

As long as the owners are there most of the time this is 100% a protected law in NYC including coops, condos etc. One person (plus, I think their child). The landlord (coop) may only ask for the name of the person but may not impose any other restrictions or ask any other questions. If they do, cite the roommate law.

No, you shouldn't be required to fill in application as long as your friends stay in the apartment.

when you mean "stay in the apartment" do you mean actually live the apt with me or have have them still own the apt. They are going to be owning the apt still , but not living with me. Will the board still need to approve me.

If the owners of the apartment are not living in the unit with you, then the Roommate Law does not apply. It's a straight sublet, and both you and the owners will have to follow whatever protocol the coop requires. Some coops don't allow subletting at all.

Although it may be tempting, don't try to move in and hope no one notices. If you're caught, it means major headaches for both you and the owners of the apartment. The owners will have breached their Proprietary Lease and will be responsible for all the coop's legal fees in getting you evicted.

Of course there was a NYC judge who ruled that that the Roommate Law *did* imply a right to sublet without permission (Lincoln Guild Housing Corporation v. Stuckelman). But everyone knew that was an absurd ruling that was going to get overturned on appeal, and it was.

yes RW, "stay" means they live there and you get to use the extra bedroom.
If they don't live there or partially live there you'll probably have to go through a board approval.

by default, if the president is unable to fullfil his duty ( in your case non existant ) the responsibility falls on the vice president.
If no one wants to hold this position, split the duties among yourselves .... it really just boils down to "setting" the agenda during the board meetings and signing some documents that usually the treasurer and/or the secretary can do. Call it a presidential "committee".

maybe people will show me something in the BCL, show me, no hearsay for me, Where it states that the president does more than run the board meetings. They have no more power than another member, exact same strength of vote , 1 vote, In this co-op the president has been acting and been a total control freak, running everything, without sharing the info with other BOD members. This is wrong, i have been telling BOD members that had a minimal set of oomph, to read the the riot act, and bring him to court if necessary, when he refuses to share info that they are legally responsible for. The president runs the meetings, that is it, O and D indemnity insurance does not cover not doing due diligence.

My 111 unit co-op is in upper Manhattan and we are not a wealthy population by any means. We save up over 12 months and pay off the Real Estate Taxes all at one time in July. So in August, we start savings up for the following July’s annual real estate taxes. We got our bank to drop the escrow requirement for the mortgage (NCB) and they allow us to do this internally. There are three benefits: the co-op receives interest each month as we save up; we get the discount on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters of early paid tax (the 1st quarter is considered paid ‘on-time’ and not eligible for the discount); and we have created a working capital reserve in case of emergency. We estimate that we either save or earn about $4,100 per year.

There is an additional benefit. This assists in creating a Board culture of saving up ahead of time for expenses and projects (fiscal discipline). For example, we are completing a $500k roof replacement project without assessment or loan as we already had funds on hand.

Finally, we also self-escrow the annual insurance charges. This allows us to pay off the annual worker’s compensation and building insurance policies fully when due to avoid paying the insurance premium finance fees. We used to self-escrow for the annual water/sewer bill (frontage) but since we switched to quarterly billing (meter), we save up for the quarterly bill.

Seems like you are in a well-run coop. What other tips do you have? Maybe Habitatmag can do another article on $ saving methods and tips.

congratulations, sounds like your in a winner

Our roof was repaired sometime in 1997-1998 (checking our records for the exact date). It was obviously not a great job as we had to repair them again in 2012.

The Board took the approach that this is a once in a 20 year job and it should be done “right”. We engaged Rand engineering to be our engineer and to develop specifications for the roof repairs. Our management company, Blue Woods, provided management oversight. The Board also wanted to perform every item of roof maintenance all at one time so as to not have to go back up there (for a repair) for the near future. We adopted a do it once and do it right approach.

The job entails parapet repairs, replacing the cockloft vents, hazardous material removal, replacement roof access doors, new skylights, repairs to the elevator room masonry and roofs (bulkhead), removing old insulation and re-insulating, repainting the vent pipes, some lintel repairs and a 20 year seamless cold fluid applied roof painted white. This cost $4,500 per unit and we had the funds on hand.

Well, when we opened the roof to pull out the old insulation and put in new insulation, guess what we found? We found only a very thin layer of foil and little insulation (some units had none over them). Stunned, we continued with our plan and placed 8” of new insulation and then resealed the roof.
Well the initial impact was visual. On the 10/31 snowstorm, the building which had the roof re-insulated had a layer of ice and snow on it, un-melted. The other two buildings where the re-insulating process had not been completed yet were clean and dry as a bone; you never knew that it had snowed. The escaping heat had blasted that show away.

Since then, we have turned down our boiler to the lowest setting and we have more heat in the units now than ever before. We are even getting complaints that the buildings are too hot! We are investigating heating control solutions now.

The Board is stunned with the revelation of how many dollars were wasted over the years by our lack of insulation. Our savings on gas alone may mean no maintenance increases for two years.

I guess what we learned is that was doing a repair job on the cheap, like our original roof job in 1997-1998, ended up costing us a lot in the long run.

Hi Steve,
Your building's repairs sound so similar to our proposed roof repair.
It has been proposed by our Engineer, and originally estimated at $300,000, that our 1980's, wood constuction, non fireproof building, flat roof, with cockloft vents, on Long Island, put a second roof covering on. It will be the forth and final layer before a total new roof has to be put on. Our last roof covering was put on in 1989. The roof has been leaking since at least 2005. We have sustained considerable damage to our apartments over those years.
The 4 bids came in considerably higher at between $450,000- $600,000.
And as you experienced we have no true idea what we will find, even though drill hole tests were done. They were minimal.
My question to you is. Did you evaluate the cost effectiveness of a whole new roof repair as opposed to a new last layer before you went ahead? The bids we received were on a single layer, inner-tube thickness membrane with placement of plywood and fireproofing material underneath and a 15 year NDL warranty.What are your thoughts about us considering a whole new roof as opposed to this recommendation by the architect?What was your initial budget and final monetary expense after all was said and done?We have only $500,000 in our reserve and will have to raise maintenance and the reserve to do either and maintain that very important reserve fund to draw buyers with mortages and allow us to refinance our Balloon mortgage in 2016.
Please tell all.
Dee Dee-Long Island