Hi,

I am a co-op President in upper Manhattan. Our Management company, Blue Woods, charges us a flat fee every month which includes managment of capital projects.

Good luck with your search!

Because you have an hourly management fee there is little to do about it until your contract expires. At that point DO NOT sign another hourly agreement. Agree to a monthly fee and stick to it. If you can get capital improvements included that's great, if not negotiate some kind of flat fee. By paying hourly you are encouring the manager to act at a snails pace instead of a Belmont winning horse. A flat fee encourages more rapid completion of a propject. Good luck

Thanks for your reply. We do have a flat rate monthly fee but capital improvements are not included. Capital improvements are charged at a fixed % of the cost of the project. This introduces a conflict of interest because there's no incentive for the manager to minimize costs. On the other hand, like you point out hourly rates provide no incentive to minimize time. We were thinking that management fees for capital improvements should be similar to other professional services like legal, engineer etc.. Our experience with other professional services is that they don't inflate the time taken to do the job but do charge a rate that adequately compensates them for their time. You raise an excellent point that I hadn't considered.

Depending on the scope, your property management company may not be the best person to managing the capitol projects to resolve your construction defects. Hiring any owner's representative firm may be a solution. Then your management company should be focused providing access coordination, accounting support and delivery of general updates to the unit owners.

Suggest the following schedule:
< $50,000 - $1,500
$50,000 - $100,000 - $2,000
$100,000 - $200,000 - $3,500
$200,000 - $350,000 - $7,000

If you management company is overseeing major capital work, you want to understand how they will be staffing the project. It is important that this person has the experience and the clarify their role during the entire process.

you cant be mushy and passive with this. get a lawyer. call 911 etc.

This board, managing agent and super are all behaving reprehensibly. They're putting their own CYA interests ahead of a shareholder being harassed by staff -- and I didn't say "allegedly harassed," since the board and the MA clearly believe the person WAS harassed or they'd be happy to have the video vindicate the super. Shameful

MK - I agree with the recommendations that you start some legal action as soon as possible. Time is important here because the longer you delay, the greater the chance that the segment of surveillance video showing the harassment will be "overwritten" as part of your surveillance system's normal functioning. An attorney can get an order to compel the retention of that video segment before it is lost forever.

If you passed a ban on smoking in the common areas you should also add NO SMOKING IN THE BUILDING ( OWNERS UNITS) and than have a amendment to the Declarations of Condominium. this wayyouhave a legal docutment that will hold upin court. Look up the Rules of Order

You are not alone. Have similar situation. Don’t want to discuss it here. Please contact me at:
camel_666@yahoo.com

I have similar issues. I will contact you.

I understand you hesitations to go any deeper into your situation than you have already revealed. I have some ideas, but because of the concerns you raised do not want to post them here. If you'd like to discuss this further, please contact me at steven424 [at] earthlink [dot] net.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Laure - If the unit-owner wants to paint the sprinkler pipes himself, give him a time limit (30 days?) to complete the project, and inform him board members will want to inspect the work and possibly take photographs. Tell him you want a signed commitment from him that he is taking responsibility for complying with the FD regulations, and that he will also be responsible for any penalties imposed on the building for non-compliance.

If he refuses, check your proprietary lease. Most leases have provisions which allow board members to enter an apartment without the owner's permission to perform emergency repairs. In my opinion (but check with your attorney first), non-compliance with a fire department directive calls for emergency repairs. In any event check with your attorney before taking any action.

In my opinion, the individual shareholder is responsible for either taking care of the requirement or permitting the co-op to perform the work in his apartment. He should therefore be responsible for all non-compliance penalties.

But all this being said, are you sure the individual pipes branching off of the main runners need to be painted? In a lot of buildings the pipes are not exposed, and therefore can't be painted. If you haven't already checked the regulations, this might save you some aggravation and expense.

The law requires that condos, coops, apartments etc. make "reasonable accomodations" for the disabled. If someone with a disabilty say requests a closer parking space this would be a reasonable accomodation. I believe that this individuals request is reasonable given the nature of her disability & the law & therefore should be granted.

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply to private residences including co-ops and condos. The applicable law is the Fair Housing Act. The disabled individual needs to write a letter to the board requesting a specific reasonable accommodation -- being able to bring his/her bike through the lobby directly to his/her apartment -- and the reason for the accommodation -- that the long walk from the basement can only be done with extraordinary difficulty because of a physical disability. The NYC Commission on Human Rights can advise.

Contrary to your post, ADA does cover coops because they are not considered private reidences. This is the reason the tax situation is so unfair. Co ops are taxed as commercial property. Many of us have been trying to get a new zoning category, but nothing has happened yet. You state that it is actually in the Fair Housing Act. I would greatly appreciate you noting which part of the Act covers this covers to the exclusion of ADA. Thanks

The ADA "prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by public accommodations and requires places of public accommodation and commercial facilities to…,” according to http://www.ada.gov/reg3a.html#Anchor-0001, which says the ADA covers only "(1) Public accommodation; (2) Commercial facility; or (3) Private entity that offers examinations or courses related to applications, licensing, certification, or credentialing for secondary or postsecondary education, professional, or trade purposes.”

The Fair Housing Act specifically applies to private dwellings (other than single- to four-family homes), according to http://www.justice.gov/crt//about/hce/title8.php.

Common sense should prevail at all times. It is not always a black and white case. (If I were the renter I would send a letter to the board/agent explaining my circumstances)

Bob.

You should get a lawyer's opinion if you plan to contest the election, especially since you're asking two separate questions.

(1) Can people be prohibited from running for the board if they are in arrears? The answer is Yes, but this must be stated in the by-laws. In fact, we have a clause precisely along those lines in our own by-laws: "No one shall be a candidate for the Board if he or she is more than one month in arrears in paying maintenance or assessments." Since you say there's no such clause in your by-laws, then it probably wasn't legitimate to exclude such people as candidates. But there's probably not much point in contesting this issue: before the next election, the board will just vote to amend the by-laws, which typically does not require a shareholder vote.

(2) Can shareholders who are in arrears be barred from voting their shares? I'm almost certain the answer is No. This would appear to be a direct violation of NY Business Corporation Law (BCL) Sec. 501(c), which requires that "each share shall be equal to every other share of the same class." As long as the shareholder is still the owner of the shares, the coop cannot legally prevent the shares from being voted. It doesn't matter what the by-laws say; a coop's governing documents can't override state law.

I'm not a lawyer, and you should certainly contact one if you want to move forward on this.

A bit of Googling turned up a recent ruling on this issue: Summer v. Ruckus 85 Corp (July 13, 2012). As expected, a co-op cannot deprive a shareholder of voting rights for being in arrears, even if it says so in the by-laws. Here's a quote from the decision, which references a ruling from 1979 (Yu v. Linton):

"In a similar case where the corporation disqualified a shareholder from voting at the annual meeting for failure to pay maintenance expense, the First Department held that '[T]he bylaws are ineffective to deprive the record shareholders of the right to vote provided by Business Corporation Law, s 612(a).'"

Interestingly, Sec. 612(a) allows one exception: "... unless otherwise provided in the certificate of incorporation." But it's profoundly unlikely that your coop's certificate of incorporation provides for any monkeying with standard voting procedures, and might run afoul of other sections of the BCL even if it did.

In short, even an amendment to the by-laws can't prevent a shareholder in arrears from voting. Here's a link to the full decision:

http://statecasefiles.justia.com/documents/new-york/other-courts/2012-ny-slip-op-31889-u.pdf?ts=1343056947

What if a shareholder is in Foreclosure and also not paying maintenance?

I'm not an attorney, but I believe as long as a shareholder is technically the owner of the unit and has not been foreclosed on, he/she is eligible to vote in an election. However, you should consult an experienced attorney for definitive guidance.

It appears that there's an easy way around this. The lease states that the storage space is furnished "under a revocable license." The board should say that all licenses will be revoked unless the lease is amended to allow the coop to charge for use of storage space. This should be done in a straightforward, common-sense manner: "Given our ever-rising costs and the high premium on storage space in New York City, the coop cannot afford to offer this amenity at no charge. We must either charge for storage space - which will require a supermajority vote of shareholders to amend the Proprietary Lease - or we must convert the area presently used for storage to another use." Done properly, this should ruffle no feathers except those of the people who thought they'd found a sly trick to get free storage lockers forever.

As for bike storage, the same "amend it or lose it" approach would work, but bicycle storage is less space-intensive. In our building, we charge for lockers but offer free bike storage since much less space is involved per person. We're not stuck with a "furnished gratuitously" clause so that works fine for us.

In my co-op, we try to reach consensus. This means creating an environment where everyone is respected and feels safe to say their piece. And I, as President, need to have the inner self-esteem to hear criticisms of my own role on occasion.

For us, voting by e-mail is a necessity however all board members are copied and the main discussion occurs with a “reply to all”. However, one cannot control what conversations occur on the sidelines, even in a board meeting.

Regarding the President who lives somewhere else, I cannot see how they can lead well. I need to perform occasional walkthroughs so I can see, with the perspective of a buyer usually, what needs to be repaired or improved. I need to hear what the shareholders are saying too.

I suggest that for the welfare of the shareholders that they resign or someone else voted in as President.

Good luck,

Steve

In reference to your board voting by email, have your by-laws been amended to explicitly allow a board vote by email? If so, would you share the language?

If there is no language in your by-laws explicitly allowing a board vote by email, then aren't you in technical violation of the by-laws? This has been our concern.

An alternative solution we take advantage of is the conference call. We have found that there are many free conference call services available on the internet that work very well. As you know, in a conference call everyone can hear and be heard in real time, which seems to be the requirement in our by-laws for a board meeting to take place.

Although we discuss via email and may reach a consensus that way, voting by email seems to be voting without actually having called a meeting to order. We have been advised that voting ourside of an actual board meeting would violate our by-laws and possibly state law, which would place us in jeopardy of being in breach of our duties.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi,

We have 9 Board Members. I usually wait until 6 members reply in the affirmative (excluding myself) before taking action that way we avoid questions of quorum. Sometimes the e-mail conversation indicates that more discussion is necessary on the topic and then the issue is tabled until the next Board meeting. Our goal on votes is consensus although we don’t always get it.

Our bylaws allow for the use of an executive committee to act between meetings.

Our Board also has power to change the By-laws (which can be overruled by the Shareholders at the next annual meeting although that has not happened). Our Board has only changed the By-laws once to my memory. That was to enable the ousting of a member who did not show up for three meetings. We have never yet used that clause.

Steve