Write a bullet point list of his specific abuses (keeping it as brief as possible) and distribute it to all shareholders in the building. You should keep it anonymous and send it via mail as well as put it under doors. Keep it completely factual. Do not exagerate or embelish. If you have dates - include dates.

What's the % of sponsor/coop owners ownership? If sponsor owns 50% or more, no vote is going to get him out. Are there any owners willing to run for office? How do the other board members feel? Most of the issues are relatively minor, has he done other more significant things? What kind of apartment repairs? If major stuff, (ie: significant material costs paid by building, couple days/several employees labor, etc.) speak to the DA's office for their opinion.

The sponsor has less than 20% of the shares but the problem is that not too many shareholders attend annual election meeting and he takes an advantage of this situation and getting reelected. No one want to run for the BOD and working with him and to see his face at all. Talking about repairs: we don’t have an access to his apartment and the super will not disclose what he done there being afraid to lose his job. If you consider this as a minor, so what are major violations? To place a security guard at his door who works as a doorman?
Who is going to provide the major stuff, (ie: significant material costs paid by building, couple days/several employees’ labor, etc.). The super or the Management? All of them are together with him and are afraid to lose the business and the job. The DA office do not carry this issues. He has his private video camera at his apartment door.

If all this stuff bothers you, either accept it, or try to change it and run for the board. Owners can provide proxies allowing others to vote their shares, without attending the meeting. If your building has an attorney on retainer, advise him on what is transpiring. Copy the management co. as well - they have a responsibility also. Regarding repairs, it's the rare super, handyman, porter that has a full day of work, where some repair work is taking him away from some other urgent task in a common area. How are the building finances, what is the condition of the building? If there is money in reserves, no problems like leaky roofs and walls, things are running smoothly, bils are paid up-to-date, building is clean and in good repair, then consider yourself lucky. If not, people need to speak up and vote him out.
This is a little story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

What an incredibly naive, tut-tutting, blame-the-victim comment.

From what the original post described, this co-op is run by a sociopath who fires people for not breaking the law at his command. You think he's not going to abuse his power to retaliate against any shareholder who tries to foment an uprising? Have you never attended a history class in your life?

The shareholder has to live in the building with that abusive individual. You think that board president won't retaliate? Won't try to cancel the shareholder's proprietary lease and do other things to make his life hell? What unicorn-and-rainbows world do you live in?

THIS is why we need am ombudsman law and THIS is why we regulatory oversight over co-op and condo boards. The precedent that ruled that the Business Judgment Rule applies to co-ops and condos needs to be overturned, because the BJR clearly was meant to apply to professional businesses ... NOT to AMATEUR BOARDS who don't know anything about business or business judgment.

Until the law is changed, shareholders are helpless against such abuse.

You are 100% correct – our board president is a control freak who for the past year and half has had two supers in the building – always trying to evict one for no other reason than that they wouldn’t do his dirty work, i.e. harass owners he doesn’t like, not perform work or services for those on his hate list.
He won’t let owners post to bulletin board – will tear down messages, controls what meetings happen in community room. He self-deals, manipulated his sidekick back on the board after he was voted off. 1/3 of building is getting services so they don’t care; 1/3 are too ignorant to know what is happening and the rest are renters.
I would suggest getting a writer in your building to write a short history of the building – get a group of these stories together and have them published.

Again putting together a short story outlining the problems in your building is really the only way to get governmental officials and others to respond. Going to meetings with a box of evidence is just too much for people to read – but a concise well put together short story gets their attention and shows immediately the problems in the building – the evidence can be presented later to back up the story. You don’t need a professional writer – get someone with some creative writing experience. After I wrote my story, I have gotten more attention and replies than all my letters to attorney generals and others put together..

So, you're going to do nothing, and wait for a new law to be passed. That's going to change something, when? You need to get the owners interested enough to take action. Without knowing the finances, what would happen if owners withheld maintenance?

I agree with JG in NYC, you need to get on the board if you want to change anything. However, in my experience, you need an entire overthrow so that you and your group of people who also need to get on the board, have the majority of the board. We were able to get 4 new board members in, but the one person who was the "bad egg" was still voted in. Very often, the strong and "experienced" have enough people fooled to be re-elected. I know one building that overthrew the entire board, except the one person that was disruptive. But because he was only one, he was minimalized and they could get things done anyway. We had to wait for the "bad egg" to step down the following year, and then replaced the entire board.

Absolutely not. Sounds like time to look for a new managment co. If the board has approved the sale, closing shouldn't take more than 2-4 weeks, tops. The lawyers do most of the paperwork, management needs to see that everything is in order, provides the proprietary lease and share certificate and collects any required fees.

from the time the contract is signed to the time the boards meets/approves the buyer should be no more than 2 months. if the management company is not providing the needed info, the board must step if. if the board won't, get a petition together from a majority of shareholders and force them to act.

We don't get the 2013/2014 report until early in 2014. The report from the NYC Dept of Finance names each individual in the co-op and how much that individual gets for the general abatement, the STAR abatement, the disability abatement and any veterans abatement. We will apply the abatements in February or March of 2014. I know some co-op's don't apply it until later.

It sounds like your coop is somewhat right. They won't know what the abatement numbers should be until February or March of 2014. They should also apply the abatement to you soon thereafter and not later in the year.

As a treasurer, I feel the same way. Whenever I try to leave items for other people to do, it either doesn't get done, or gets done poorly. After 5 management companies and about 22 agents, only a couple of agents could compose a decent letter. I guess I'll be on the board until I sell.

Unless your building is in crisis, why not step back and let others give it a shot. It may be worth seeing whether they can keep the ship afloat. I "knew too much" as well, but in my case it was what a poor long-term investment my building was. I wasn't willing to put in the time to turn it around, and was happy to find a better place to live. One advantage to having been board prez or treasurer, you know what to look for, and what to avoid, in a new investment.

http://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/2012/2012-September/Featured-Articles/Co-op-Condo-Back-Office-Only-Management#.Ui84uGR8KGQ

and get rid of this president. he sounds terrible.

Bring situtation up at next board meeting, Have the issue resolved there, if that don't work, At the next annual meeting have him removed from board. let everyone vote. Community board is for all,

We posted a 'notice for use of bulletin board'.
Items of common interest, such as local community events, street fairs,etc. may be posted by anyone. Anything of a personal nature (item for sale, services offered, etc.) must indicate the apartment # of the poster.
Any commercial postings or anything expired will be removed.

Why would I want to go there? If you want people to attend, pick a better venue ;)

I'm guessing the above is said jokingly, given the wink at the end. The Pennsy, across from Penn Statin, is a LOT more convenient that the horrible Javits Center, which has essentially NO public transportation to it and where you're competing with dozens of other people at once for a cab.

Steve from Inwood is not entirely off base. The venue is not the best NYC has to offer and doesnt compare to the NYC Hilton where the Coop/Condo show is on April 18th. JB is 100% dead on about the Javits Center.

However, it is by far the best with regard to size and access. There are at best 50 booths as opposed to 500+ at the other shows. You can spend real time discussing your needs as opposed to beign scanned and shuffled along. If you have a pressing needs: fuel conversions, incentive/rebate concerns, commodity issues, elevator, laundry...this is the place to go for info.

I'm not a lawyer, have you spoken to your closing attorney? I'm not sure how much the proprietary lease could change. It's not an easy job to change the original lease, so I would suggest contacting your attorney and have him obtain the new one and compare them for material differences. Amendments are required annually by the sponsor until all the units in the project are sold. If they were not issued, that is an issue with the sponsor and the attorney general can be contacted. Your attorney should have picked up on that as well. Whether or not there is something that can or should be done would probably depend on the significance of the lease changes and the contents of the amendments.

The lease presented is an old copy from the Offering Plan it does not have the newer (significant) amendments like roof rights, subletting changes, etc.
The attorney says the older one is not a viable lease. What of all the new buyers that have signed a non-viable lease?

My understanding is that Dept of Buildings requires a super to either live on premises or live within a certain distance from the property (500 feet?) if the building contains more than a certain number of units (40? not sure). You may be in violation of that law.
Generally, an apartment is provided as a condition of employment, and the value of the apartment (rent, utilities, etc.) are not considered taxable income. So, it's often to the supers benefit financially, assuming the apartment is appropriate for the super and his family. If he is not living within the building, he still must live nearby.

Not entirely true. A building is not required to provide an apartment for the super.
For a building like yours, 64 units, offering that package (live-in super) is a plus on many levels, both for the employee and the residents.

Superintends today dont really care much about apartment. One they get paid a bit more and second they are not worried about someone knocking on there door threw out the door.
The positive is the out side super can not go home a take a nap.
Why should building take on extra expense.
The extra money that comes from that unit can help to pay the differense of his salary
I have 20yrs experence working with supers and best is not to live there. More work get done cuase you must creat a work schedule for him.

http://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/2013/2013-June/Featured-Articles/New-York-s-Roommate-Law#.UiYr7is6XIc

note the info that indicates the owner must be the primary resident for the roommate law to come into effect. if they are not residing in the apartment, it is a sublet and must come under board review.