Joe:
While attorney involvement seems a good idea there's difficulty responding to your post because pertinent information is omitted. If you're able to disclose answers without causing legal/liability issues, the following questions are posed.
What was the nature of the conflict?
What are the manager's verbal demands? What did he ask you to do?
And what are the allegations on which eviction is based?

For starters, coop's are corporations in NY State and are required to be registered with the NYS Dept of Corporations. You can look up the president's name and address here - http://www.dos.ny.gov/corps/bus_entity_search.html
If it is not up to date, report it to the Dept of Corp.
I agree with Dax, without some general info on the issues, it's hard to advise on a course of action. Eviction isn't appropriate, the corporation can revoke your proprietary lease in the case of severe infraction of the by-laws. Major alterations without approval or city permits, extreme default in maintenance payments, subletting, continuous unreasonable noise may be causes to confront you with, but can generally be remedied.

Is this building a Mitchell_Lama coop? I don't know of any other coops with waiting lists. They may have specific requirements for adding names to the lease that differ from ordinary coops since they fall under other govt regulations. What is the building name/address? Sometimes that info is available online.

I'm hesitant to give details about exactly where I live because the management has us very paranoid. I don't want them to gain any info on what I'm thinking right now. In fact I don't plan on doing anything further unless the lawyer I'm hiring advises me to.

But I looked up their procedure for adding names to the lease. And while the general policy is a bit complicated, in this situation it is not. The only thing that they need to know, according to their written policy, is that my wife is her father's daughter and that she has been listed on the income affidavit for at least 2 consecutive years up to the current date. Both of those things are extremely easy to verify.

This situation we have here, I hope, for other people's sake, is not typical. The management has the board of directors wrapped around their finger and they're willing to break the law in harassing people. If you look up the proper procedure for any of the recent developments, it is very clear they are out of line. I only hope that the corruption stops at the management and they don't have people in the relevant government agencies on the pay roll too.

Like I said I'm hiring a lawyer. I'm not going to try to handle this myself anymore, we've just been pushed too far. Thanks for the help anyway though.

Fair enough, I guess it's hard to advise me when I'm being so vague. Thank you for joining the conversation.


The nature of the conflict:

Our dog got in a fight with another dog, about 3 months ago now, and the other dog was injured. The other party fled the scene before we could speak with them or exchange info; it was unclear which dog started the fight, and we didn't find out their dog had been injured until a few days later, from a security officer at the building. I immediately volunteered to pay the vet expenses and gave security my info with permission to pass it on to the other party, to which they responded that this should be sufficient to resolve the issue.

Then the management told us the other party wanted to remain anonymous. To this day, we do not know who they are, but we agreed to pay their expenses (through the management) anyway, just to try to keep the peace. Note that on the vet bill (we demanded a copy of that, but the other party's name was blacked out): the other dog's injury is described as "minor," and there were some charges for things unrelated to the injury, but we paid it anyway. Along along with the payment we submitted a letter of consolation to the other party, and a letter to the management indicating the payment was made in good faith and did not indicate guilt or liability. I don't think a lot of people would have paid the bill under these circumstances, never mind the letter of consolation, but bizarrely not even this was sufficient to resolve the matter.


The manager's verbal demands:

The general manager told us we had to get rid of the dog, but as I said we never received this in writing. My dog has never had a problem like this before or since, and is well liked by others in my building, very friendly. What the Occupancy Agreement says one must do if your dog displays aggression against another, is merely to keep your dog away from that other dog whenever on coop property. Not only have I done that, but I no longer walk the dog on the property at all, and I no longer let my dog socialize with any other dog under any circumstances, just in case. The management was notified that I'm taking these precautions via a copy of the letter of consolation sent to the other party, to no effect.

The issue with the general manager seems personal. We wonder if the owners of the other dog are relatives of his, but even that fails to explain how fare they've taken it.

In the "grounds for eviction" it said that our dog had attacked the other dog "without any provocation," causing "serious" injuries, and that we were harboring a "vicious" dog who is a nuisance to the community. Not only are these things false, but there is a certain process described in the Occupancy Agreement that should occur before a threat of eviction can be sent, which was bypassed. Also if it were really the case that we had to choose between the dog and eviction we would find a way to relocate the dog; but as I said there is nothing in the bylaws, in the management's notifications to us, or anywhere else indicating we should have to. In fact, even in the "grounds for eviction" it just says we have 10 business days to remedy the situation, it does not say how.


I did locate the address of the president of the board of directors, and I sent him a detailed letter about the whole thing, yesterday morning. The main point of the letter is that we have already remedied the situation, and did so a long time ago. My father-in-law and I suspect that the president does not know anything about this situation and that the "grounds for eviction" was sent with his signature copied onto it, without his knowledge. We're hoping he is angered about how this general manager has been behaving and intervenes on our behalf, but naturally we are scared. I don't want to be evicted, but even more so I don't want my wife or her elderly father to be evicted. We have all been losing a lot of sleep on this, not to mention the time it takes to prepare for a possible hearing (spent all weekend on that, falling behind on other work I have), and my wife has been having panic attacks and crying spells at work. We feel that at this point, we should achieve much more than just not being evicted: we should get some retribution for being harassed and intimidated, but we would settle for this general manager being fired. We don't feel safe living here with him in the management. And it can make a person paranoid to see how confident he is with using the pres' signature and threatening to involve city housing.

Joe:
Unless there are one or more other underlying issues involved, and although I'm not an attorney, based on what you've indicated an eviction would appear to be a stretch.
Nonetheless, you should consider taking the eviction notice seriously. Continuing to put relevant evidence/ documents in order as well as consulting with your attorney in a timely manner seem to be good ideas.

Yeah the more I learn the less likely our eviction seems. In fact I spoke with someone at the Attorney General's office yesterday and they said there's a strong possibility the notice we got was a bluff, and that the board president does not even know what this manager is doing. If you were a board pres (reader: maybe you are) wouldn't this upset you?

Which leads me to my next point: what this General Manger is doing is illegal, right? Obviously speaking to "my lawyer" would be a good idea, but that assumes I have one, or that I can afford one. My father-in-law has some rich friends who would help out, but he doesn't want to tap those resources unless he really thinks eviction is pending. He seems to think I'm handing it fine, which I guess I am, but it sure is taxing! I'm working on a dissertation for a PhD right now; I can't really be spending a week at a time learning how to act like a lawyer for the family just because some lunatic has decided to persecute us!

We wouldn't really want to sue the coop because that's not very neighborly, but we would like to see this tyrannical Gen Manager fired. He's causing my family a lot of hardship, not to mention wasting the coop's money on harassing us for no good reason. As a board member, wouldn't that concern you (if not the first thing, at least the second)? I feel like there should be some authority I could alert and pass my documentation on to, who would intervene.

and i'm horrified by the story you tell. in our building the management company would never be able to do this. everything is transparent and all important communications are approved by the board. although i understand the concern about reaching out to any attorney, a well-written letter might protect you in the long run.

if you decide to reach out to an attorney make sure that his/her letter states that you can't be held responsible for any legal fees for the building's attorney to respond to you.

@co-op_owner: Thank you for the comment. I was starting to think it was typical for people to look the other way when things like this happen. I'm still wondering if it is, but it is nice to hear a Board President indicate that they find this out of line!

The letter that I sent was very well-written - not to toot my own horn but I spent a long time on it, and it had the kind of detail to be convincing that we would have a case if the matter went to court, and it is completely backed up by the documentation I've prepared. We still have not heard back, either from the management or from the Board Pres. We figure we'll give them more time before assuming that they intend to ignore the issue. But if we don't hear anything for a couple of weeks, we're seriously thinking about suing for harassment.

It's looking like we need an attorney's help just to get our dog registered, and to get my wife's name on the lease. According to the Occupancy Agreement and our status, doing the latter should be very straightforward but they have been giving her a runaround on it for years (since before I got involved). At this point I am quite sure that the reason for them harassing us over the dog is because they don't want my wife to inherit her father's share (as I said, she has a right to this in our particular situation and it's very clear that she does), because she doesn't make as much money as most people they could replace her with. (Little do they know that in a couple of years, when I finish school and get a real job, our financial status will vastly improve!) Anyway, if we have to go through the trouble of getting an attorney to get done these things which should be very routine, we also want to be reimbursed for that expense, and for the time/energy we've been deprived of.

In the long-term I am considering pursuing a position of the board myself, to try to motivate the community to uproute some of this corruption. As I mentioned (I think) the people here are, in general, very nice, and in my opinion worth standing up for. But they seem to be such cowards when it comes to this tyrannical general manager!

joe, some of what you say confuses me. would be happy to advise further, but can you clarify a few things?

-your father-in-law owns the apartment
-your wife stands to inherit the apartment
-the building is not allowing her name to go on the lease because they are concerned about income level

what confuses me is what you say about them getting the apartment back - is this a limited ownership co-op with a waiting list? that's the only way the building can get the apartment back.

if not, and the apartment is owned free and clear and there's only maintenance to pay, they would have a hard time denying your wife. we sometimes request a year of maintenance in escrow if we have any financial concern - that could certainly be an option if need be.

I wish I could clarify things better but they are not clear on my end either, and I think management here prefers that things remain unclear.

My father-in-law is "the shareholder." He pays a monthly maintenance fee. I've asked him whether he owns this apartment and every time despite the length of his response I still never know the answer. I have never heard the coop referred to as "limited ownership," but I do know that my father-in-law and his (now deceased) wife were on a waiting list for a long time before they moved in. I also know that at the time when they went on the waiting list, as well as at the time they moved in, their intention was for my wife to inherit the apartment. In fact, they had entered her name on the lease along with their own names at that time, but then about 3 years ago, after my wife's brother suggested looking into it, that they discovered that technically only 2 names were allowed to be listed on the lease and that had defaulted to excluding my wife.

Now that my wife's mother is dead, it would seem straightforward that her name could replace her mother's on the lease. As for why they there's been such a runaround from management in getting this done, it's only speculation. I expect it has to do with my wife's income. But I don't know this. It's just the only explanation I can think of. They asked her for an absurd arrangement of documents, which she sent, only for them to then ask her for more documents, including some which she had already sent, and some outdated tax info that would require a hefty fee to the IRS to attain, and it was left unresolved. When they (or I) have attempted to communicate with management staff about it, the staff has been nasty and insulting on the phone and provided no clear information as to what we need to do.

I'm trying to sort things out for them, but like I said I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know a lot about these issues, it's been very hard. Yesterday after a conversation with my father-in-law, he decided to call a lawyer that another relative recommended, but having a little dementia, what he told the lawyer on the phone didn't make a lot of sense. He passed the phone to me at the end and the lawyer asked me to send him the notice we got, sounding a little frustrated. So I sent it, along with some clarification.

I'm hoping we'll be able to hire this lawyer and get this straightened out. On the other hand I don't think we should be responsible for the legal fees since what we want is supposed to be doable in a week, not 3 years. The whole thing is maddening.

My father-in-law still thinks we need to go to court tomorrow, because "grounds for eviction" notice said that if we didn't remedy the alleged problem by then that they will file a claim with Housing Preservation and Development for our eviction. I tried to explain that as of now that office doesn't even know about our problem, and if a claim is filed, THEN we would need to go to court. But it just went in circles. Like I said before: he has some dementia. Moreover, when I called the HPD office about it, to ask what we need to do, they said they don't handle these things at all!

Long story short, I guess clarity is exactly what is missing about every aspect of this situation. And I think that's the way the management likes it.

what you describe (with a waiting list) is a limited equity co-op. they paid very little in and arguably when they move out, the co-op reverts back and goes to the next person on the list.

where these co-ops have become hot topics is when there's a possibility that they will revert to unlimited equity. meaning that the owners in place when the 'contract' is up will be sitting on very valuable property. perhaps you are getting a hard time because the property is up for conversion in the next few years.

definitely reach out to a lawyer. you can learn more about these co-ops here:http://cooperator.com/articles/2156/1/Out-of-Many-One-New-York/Page1.html

Yes that does shed some light on the possible motivations behind all this. Really I just moved in here with my wife because the ceiling was falling in at my last apartment and her family is very welcoming. I had no idea how much politics I would be getting into. I just needed a place to stay.

Anyway I spoke with that lawyer I mentioned, myself, and he seems to know what he's doing, and to be taking our situation seriously. He has an impressive reputation and the person who recommended him is very trustworthy. At this point the plan is to pass on my records to the lawyer and follow his advice from here on. From the looks of it the management's handling was quite foolish, even to their own ends, because not only will they have to honor our rights but they may have to cover our legal expenses too. I can't believe how far they went to intimidate us, some of it was definitely not legal.

Anyway thank you for lending an ear and for the info.

After speaking with the attorney general's office, and reading some other stuff, it seems that it's not uncommon to have an ineffectual board of directors. I can imagine that having the title of, say, "President of the Board of Directors" of a coop, would look good for your resume and social status. If one could have such a title easily in exchange for passing off all responsibility to some management staff ... well I can see how a coop might fall into the sort of trap mine appears to be in. The management has their own agenda, and they can threaten people via intimidating mail or visits from security officers or nasty phone calls, and generally that's enough to get their way. And as long as they don't do those things to the immediate family/friends circle of board members, nobody is going to intervene. Because who wants to have to go to court, even if they're right? Let's face it, justice is a luxury. If you want it and aren't rich, you have to make serious sacrifices (which are unjust).

Well we've about had it. I'm pretty sure my documentation shows this manager has been pulling some illegal moves in harassing us about it and we're not afraid to pursue it. We're also not afraid to get the board in trouble. I'm not really interested in excuses from people who are supposed to be in charge, but sit there doing nothing while my family is harassed to the point of sleeplessness, panic attacks, and crying spells.