Having the meeting with all your key players is a very good start. I bet some novel ideas come out of it.

Trying to convince your shareholders that they are facing major maintenance increases and assessments will be a horrendous task. If your shareholders do not grasp the beneficial value of doing what they need to now, you will probably have to use legal and regulatory liability as the stick to get them to cooperate. I think it would be best if your attorney delivers the bad news, so you are not the messenger who gets killed. :-)

Do you know if there are any shareholders who are more vocal or more entrenched than most? You might try to approach them personally before the meeting so they are not as disruptive as they could be. Once you have all the facts and figures and liabilities, go over it with them. Try to get them to be at least neutral if you can't get their support. Things will go smoother, especially if they feel you are reaching out to them in earnest.

Above all else, keep your cool. Emotions will run very high. No matter what is said and what you are called, you and the board are the voice of authority, and you have to be perceived at all times as being capable to lead the co-op out of this morass. Never take what is said personally, even if you know it is intended to be. Take plenty of Valium before meeting with your shareholders.

Once again, good luck with what you need to accomplish.

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Was this building built by the city? A HPD project? It seems that numerous buildings built over the past 14 years have these kind of construction issues. Has the sponsor been notified? Has the city been notified and buildings dept. and consumer affairs, attorney generals office? It seems the same bad contractors/builders continue to get contracts and they leave a trail of bad construction problems all around the boros.

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This has been quite well covered, just a couple of extra points:
1). you need to hold an initial, and probably a follow-up Town Hall Mtg specifically on this issue to address it properly.
2). You need the Engineer to present the Engineering report, but do it after the Coop Lawyer delivers an obligation and legal responsibility talk.
3). Request that your Engineer as part of his study, to prepare (at no additional cost) a 'downside' report on the cost of deferring or not doing this work. and calendar it. As in the increase of damage and related cost over time as they refuse to move forward.
4). Prepare an upside plan as to how yo will fund and schedule the repair program and any others so the property is made whole and the shareholders are financially protected.
5). If you are not doing so already, then when you plan next year's budget build in an additional fixed % that gets swept off the top of the monthly maintenance collections/operating fund and put directly into the reserves for capital projects. untouchable.
6). if you are not doing that already for Real Estate Taxes and Insurance they should go into segregated savings accounts for quarterly payouts as well, otherwise they look like available capital instead of earmarked capital and get spent.

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No this was not built by the city or an HPD project. The sponsor was not notified. Should they be? They have no dealings with the condo in years. Not sure they are even based out of this country anymore.

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