One possibility if you didn’t receive an abatement is that your purchase of the apartment from the sponsor was recent and the apartment status has not yet been changed. The Dept of Finance sends a detailed statement to a co-op’s managing agent listing the abatements and exemptions due to every apartment so you should be able to ask your management to tell you whether your apartment qualifies for an abatement in the 2008-09 tax year and, if so, exactly how much it is. Alternatively, you could phone the DOF abatement ‘hot-line’ directly at 1212 361 7099.

If your co-op is already receiving the co-op abatement, you can, individually, submit a new claim for your apartment. You can do that on-line at the DOF web site (see below). This has to be submitted by Jan 5 to qualify for abatements in the tax year starting July 1. (The city’s fiscal year starts in July whereas most people work with a fiscal year starting in January.) But, generally, management is responsible for updating information on the status of apartments; you are only responsible for applying for the various exemptions, like STAR.

If an apartment is sold to another shareholder during the tax year, then each shareholder should get a pro rata amount of the abatement because the apartment, itself, was already eligible for the abatement. However, if you buy a SPONSOR apartment, there is no pro rating. Sponsor apartment do not qualify for the abatement and the eligibility of the apartment is determined by the prior owner’s abatement status as of Jan 5 for the tax year starting July 1.

One other possibility to look at is that you received an abatement credit but the total amount of your maintenance didn’t reflect that because you also had debits.


http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/pdf/05pdf/exemption_abatement.pdf

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