It is obvoius they want the apt. Document everything in every detail. I bet they are going to send you a bill for every time the security shows by your door. The best thing you can do is be part of a organization who fights for the rights of shareholders. They are not going to add anything to your wife. There are legal ways of doing it. Google coop inheritance. I believe the cooperator had an article on it. Look at COOPABUSE.COM. I know one of our member had a terrible time inheriting an apt after her grandmother died and there was a will. Send me a message at ROSA.NAZAR@GMAIL.COM and I will connect you to the person. It is important that your father in law do the correct paper work. Let me know if you found the article on coop inheritance. Do not waste on minute. Be smarted than they are and send them polite email about what they are doing and make sure you mention that you do not owe them any money and that you reserve the right to fight it in court. They just want you out so they can keep the apt and they might even send the owner to a nursing home DO not move your wife and your father in law needs you there.

Joe Quinn, Ms Nazar is providing incorrect information. The building can't take an apartment from a shareholder. The building does have the right to request information before allowing an additional shareholder as an owner.

As far as the dog goes - Steve in Inwood and Peoples Choice are giving the best advice here.

I do not have coops; I hate the fact that there is no law that protects our home. What they doing to Joe is extortion . Joe document everything. First why is managing collecting money for a shareholder. They are there to manage the building not as a collection company for an individual. Go back to what exactly happen on the day of the incident. It sounds to me like a fraud. Have you here of people who provoke car accidents to collect from the insurance company. To me it is very suspicions that the guy instead of talking to Joe said the management will handle this. The manager should only sent a letter to Joe not harass him and his family by trying to collect money without even telling him who is this money going to. I suggest you send a letter to the board and managing questing why are they doing this; it is not their job. If the person wants to get pay he should ask Joe directly; Joe acted in good faith but they did not.
To me this is harassment, extortion and worst because there is an 82 year old person involved.
Yes they can take the apt. If you leave your father in law alone they will call social service and claim he can't be by himself and send him to a nursing home. Then they will sell the apt probably for a very low price to somebody on the board, from the management company or a family or friend of them. They will deduct everything they want to claim that they spend and your wife will get a few pennies or nothing. THAT IS REALITY.
STAY there and find the link I told you about the best way to inherit a coop. You are there to take care of an elderly and that is your home. Send a letter to management questing their roll on this, copy all members of the board and let them know if they do not stop you will file a complain with the attorney general. If they do not stop file with AG.
By the way another way to get your apt is to make you an undesirable tenants. They used all kind of duty trI do not have coops; I hate the fact that there is no law that protects our home. What they doing to Joe is extortion . Joe document everything. First why is managing collecting money for a shareholder. They are there to manage the building not as a collection company for an individual. Go back to what exactly happen on the day of the incident. It sounds to me like a fraud. Have you here of people who provoke car accidents to collect from the insurance company. To me it is very suspicions that the guy instead of talking to Joe said the management will handle this. The manager should only sent a letter to Joe not harass him and his family by trying to collect money without even telling him who is this money going to. I suggest you send a letter to the board and managing questing why are they doing this; it is not their job. If the person wants to get pay he should ask Joe directly; Joe acted in good faith but they did not.
To me this is harassment, extortion and worst because there is an 82 year old person involved.
Yes they can take the apt. If you leave your father in law alone they will call social service and claim he can't be by himself and send him to a nursing home. Then they will sell the apt probably for a very low price to somebody on the board, from the management company or a family or friend of them. They will deduct everything they want to claim that they spend and your wife will get a few pennies or nothing. THAT IS REALITY.
STAY there and find the link I told you about. You are there to take care of an elderly.
By the way when they want your apt they make you an undesirable tenants; which I think in your case they are working on it. I am sure this is making your family very upset or depressed; this is not good for an 82 year old person. If they persist contact the human rights. Your step father has the right to spend his last days in peace.
Go to COOPABUSE.COM to read about horror coop stories. After your wife inherit the coop you can sell or keep it. But if you keep it you need to make sure to work to change the laws because we have no protection at all against the abusers. Or if you have a slave mind you stay there and take the abuse. I do not have a slave mind to I will make sure the laws are changed to protect our coop home; just like any other American home. Feel free to email me at ROSA,NAZAR@GMAIL.COM

I meant I do not hate coops. Actually I "own" a coop since 1987. The worst decision in my life. In a coop one does not own anything except the certificate of shares which means nothing againt the power and abuse of the boar. To change laws to protect our home go COOPABUSE.COM and email me at ROSA.NAZAR@GMAIL.COM

Joe,

As a dog owner, I would not "farm" out the dog unless everything else is resolved and they agree to what you need done subject to the dog leaving. At that point, there are people out there who will rescue and/or board pets.

If your father-in-law is a shareholder, he owns shares in the corporation which come with the right to reside in a specific apartment (the proprietary lease). There are cases of abuse by boards, I personally know of one which refused to let someone sell by turning down applicant after applicant. Unfortunately, although are some parameters and laws in place to protect shareholders, at times they fail to operate properly or dissuade boards from doing things until there is the threat of a lawsuit and even then it may actually have to proceed in litigation. I have mixed feelings about all of this. As an individual I would want to know, as a board member I believe that the reasons for an action on an applicant should not be discussed. We live in a litigious society and people abuse that.

There are a lot of attorneys out there who deal with coop matters. Some are expensive, some are less so. I have been on the board of my coop for many years and I assure you that despite what Rosa believes there are protections in the law.

If you want to email me offline, I will give you my phone number and would be happy to talk to you. You can email me at nycbut4u@aol.com. Just mention in the email that you are from the habitatmag forum.

Joe you have 2 problems, first look at your by-laws to see if it states anything about getting your names on the stock cert. or anything about in case shareholder dies. It will state if you'll need to pay a transfer tax or a fee. It took sometime to get my wife on my stock cert. but I did after a year. Did you write to the Board about wanting your wife to be on the cert. or the dog? If not please do so telling them all about the paperwork you handed in and feeling strong armed. If you need help go to your dad's lawyer for advice with all paperwork you already handed over. It would also help to read the Occupancy Agreement. your wife is a caregiver we have a law to protect us in cases like this.
The dog is another story, ask to see the Vet bills before you give any money. You need a name for signing the check to the dogs owner. That's when you'll see who it's coming from. When you talk to your lawyer for these problems things will come to light. One step at a time. Please do not take advice from Rosa Nazar it seems and looks like she Hates Co ops & condos. Best of luck.

Hi Joe,

To be frank, I am not sure you and your wife are ready for Co-op ownership yet in that you are still thinking like renters and not owners.

First of all, this is a Proprietary Lease and not a renter lease. It is rare for anyone to simply be “added to the lease” without a corresponding real estate transaction (i.e. a closing). I am not a lawyer. I think you need a lawyer to take you through the options. Your first place to take a look at is to see what the Proprietary Lease and any amendments may say about who can live in the unit and who can succeed to the shares (i.e. without a real estate transaction).

A real estate closing would mean that the Board would have an approval on who gets to live in the unit. The dog issue is a big one. Sure mistakes happen. Being an owner might mean not letting the dog get into a situation where damage might take place. (For example, this type of attitude – preventing problems - works well for having parties in the unit and similar situations where inconvenience or damage to others and their property “might occur” – prevent them in the first place).

My advice to you (since you are in the transition phase of hoping to become owners) is that if you really want to show the Board and Management that you are ownership material, give the dog away (hint: at least on a temporary basis) .

You and you wife may decide that ownership is not for you (or at least ownership in a co-op) – it’s not for everyone. If so, then don’t stick around. Your wife can still receive the shares, sell them and receive the funds.

Good Luck

Thank you very much for responding @Steve-Inwood, @people's choice, and @rosa nazar. I want to write back right away because I'm going away for a few days tomorrow, and will not have time to follow up on these suggestions until next week. But I want to make sure you know I'm listening. Please forgive me for the long posts -- I'm desperate and this forum looks like a great resource.

Steve, you are right that we do not understand co-op politics. I have never owned property in my life, I've always rented apartments. My wife has been counting on inheriting this for a long time, but she shies away from opaque legal jargon and bureaucratic paperwork. My father-in-law does not know a lot about how things work here either. Moreover, his hearing and memory are not so good. According to him, the more questions you ask, the more you'll just tick people off and the less sense anything will make. None of us have lawyers, or know where to find one without getting ripped off. I also have very little to spend -- I'm working on a PhD and teaching part time, and it will be another 2 years before I have a real job.

I will certainly investigate the proprietary lease. I will need to ask my father-in-law about that at the right time, and obtain a copy. However, we all were under the impression that under the circumstances, my wife has a right to succession, and that all she needs to demonstrate is that she's his daughter and has lived here for 2 years. Is this a misconception? I see info on NYC housing sites saying this is the policy for *rent* controlled/stabilized apartments. I would think one's succession rights would be even stronger in the case where the prior tenant *owns* part of the place.

We considered temporarily relocating the dog to appease the management. Unfortunately we have nowhere to send him. More importantly, the demand that we get rid of the dog is clearly not consistent with the policy written in the occupancy agreement, especially since I've done everything I can to make sure it never happens again. I'm beginning to think "ownership material" just means someone who lets people bully them and doesn't fight back, in which case maybe I'm not. I've already told my father-in-law that I would rather move out than see my dog put to sleep over this.

I did ask for a copy of the vet bill, and they delivered it. The other party's name was blacked out. Management will not provide that info no matter what, and wants a check made out to them, saying they'll pass it on. Compared to my experience, and the vet's description of the wound, the bill is about 3 times what it should be, but we haven't even mentioned that. All we're requesting is something official in writing saying what the payment is for, to protect ourselves. Without that, the other dog owners could still sue us and we wouldn't even be able to prove we'd already paid!

But I think a huge point that I was missing before, is the role of the Board of Directors. So far we have had no communication with them, only with the management. As a matter of fact, the people I meet in the building when I'm taking my dog out are extremely fond of the dog, and comment on how well-behaved he is, and I know that some of those people are on the board! I just never knew what that meant. For all I knew they played bingo and organized craft fairs.

So for now, I'm going to work on contacting the board of directors, getting a copy of the proprietary lease, and keeping close documentation of everything that happens. Thank you also Rosa for those links, I will keep that info in mind in case things don't improve.

Owning a coop is not owning real estate, actually, it is owning shares in a corporation, ie. the cooperative. There are instances when people who live in coops are covered by the New York Rental law, but not always. I think you should get a copy of the proprietary lease, house rules, etc, AND if you can locate a copy, The Condo and Coop Bible. The latter is a great intro to how coops and condos work, with particular attention to proprietary leases and such.

In my building, for instance, a shareholder can leave his/her apartment to anyone, but that person still has to pass the board (based on income etc) if he/she wants to live there. Usually heirs just want to sell. There are also instances when other names are put on proprietary leases. As far as I know, as long as someone is actually LIVING in the apartment, there's no way to prevent that, though in fact, there is usually a lot of paperwork involved.

Your dog situation does complicate things. Even if the board is predisposed to your situation, which isn't a given, a misbehaving dog on the part of a potential new resident is a potential problem for the board. This is true even if the house rules are silent.

Good luck. Keep us posted.

Just a couple comments quickly before I take off (I'll be back Monday).

1. Isn't the board under any obligation to *justify* its approval of new residents? Clearly I have some learning to do, but I would think that the things in the occupancy agreement would need to be the basis of such decisions. Otherwise, what's to stop them from banning people based on say, race or sexual orientation or the like?

2. About my dog, he really is very well-behaved, much more so than other dogs in the building. In fact he has to be especially well trained so as not to react when poorly trained dogs bark at him and are allowed to pull on the leash trying to get at him. What happened was an isolated incident. It has never happened before and I can say with confidence, based on the precautions I've introduced, that it will never happen again. But what I'm discovering (I think) is that rumors matter much more than facts in a co-op. Would you say there is truth to that? In fact, security at one point thought I had 2 dogs, because the dog people were seeing so poorly matched the description of the problematic dog they heard rumors about.

Hopefully next time I post I'll have gotten my hands on some of the resources recommended. Thanks again so much for the advice.

Joe

Joe, coop's are unlike condo's, private housing or rentals. I've been a board member for over 20 years, and I am not a lawyer. Your father-in-law purchased the right to live in his apartment. There is no given right to succession, regardless of length or time or relationship, unless spelled out in the lease and bylaws of the coop. In my coop, it is not uncommon for an owner to request the addition of a spouse to be added to the lease.
We check out the spouse as we would a buyer, to see if he/she appears to have the financial resources to maintain the apartment in the event of death of the owner. Generally, we approve those and issue new share certificates/leases. We have had similar situations regarding adult children, generally not resident. So far, no one has complied with our documentation requirement in order to have another name added to the shares/lease. This is generally just a move to attempt to simplify estate proceedings. If it is not likely that the party would actually move into the apartment, we generally would not permit the name to be added.
In your case, your wife has been living there for a lengthy period of time, if she has shown finances capable of maintaining the apartment and paying maintenance, and has a financial reserve to fall back on in the case of an assessment, the board should be willing to add her to the shares/lease.
You can do a little research on the NYC website, some coop's record the shares/leases and you could check the building records to see if others have had additional names added to shares/leases.
Have you or your wife spoken or corresponded with anyone on the board? Or asked to meet with them? The management company/agent doesn't make decisions, the board does. The coop board may not want any lawsuits relating to your dog, so if you can resolve the issue with the vet bills, you might have a better chance of getting approval. You might need to agree to give up the dog as well if they fear a repeat. You can request or prepare a 'stipulation of release' (or have a lawyer do it) releasing you from all past and future claims for damages and claims from the one incident with the dogs, prior to turning over a check. Good luck!

Hi, thanks again for all the feedback. I've been busy with the new semester starting (I'm a PhD student / teacher) since getting back from my trip. Here's an update (sorry for the length).

I did submit a payment to cover the vet bills for that dog despite feeling they were disproportionate to what happened. Along with it, I sent a friendly letter to the other people, apologizing, explaining the precautions I'm taking now, and introducing myself in attempt to alleviate their irrational fear of me (didn't put it like that). The management read that and seemed to change their attitude after that, though still no change in the lease situation. I also made them sign some stuff saying they would deliver the letter and that they acknowledge that the payment is not an indication of guilt/liability. After my last apartment (basic Brooklyn slumlord situation) I learned a few things about creating legally admissible documents. I think the way I handled it made them decide to check themselves in how aggressively they were dealing with us. But like I said, nothing has changed with the lease.

My intentions for the next move are to contact the board of directors, and also try to get my wife, instead of her dad, to start sending the rent checks. This is all very difficult since I am not the main person involved here. My wife easily becomes overwhelmed by stacks of opaque paperwork, and my father-in-law easily gives up on anything that's not watching TV while eating ice cream. When I bring it up with him, he always says how the managements' main strategy is to intimidate people ... then he doesn't say much else: I take it their strategy is working on him.

@JG:
I'm curious about what your board's "documentation requirement" is. My wife got a list of documentation to submit, which she did comply with, only to receive another one which was harder to comply with. Some of the documentation on the second list, she did not have because she had already given it to them the first time. Also, they'd requested pay stubs, which she provided, only to be asked for tax documents which cost hundreds of dollars to order from the IRS.

I'm also confused about the income requirement. As I understand, one's rent is a function of their income here. I've been assuming that this is why we have been feeling pressure to leave; we don't make as much as most people they could probably rent to (at least right now - once I finish my PhD I will make a lot more). But my father-in-law is paying less than what I paid for my last apt in Brooklyn, which was half the size and infested with mice & roaches; basically anyone living in NYC could afford to live here. So, @JG (or others), what is the income requirement? But really before I delve into that we need to speak with the board, rather than the management. In my opinion it is obvious that the management is corrupt, I only hope the board has as much power over them as you all have advised.

I need to talk with my wife again about what I think we need to do. But ultimately she needs to be the one to do it (I think), since she's the one trying to get on the lease. And for that I need to wait until the time is right; our lives are hectic and those times are kind of rare for now. But the clock is ticking....

joe, in my building, when someone is added to the ownership of an apartment, we require 3 months of bank statements, 3 years of tax returns, 3 pay stubs, verification of employment/salary and the REBNY form. the reason for this is to confirm that the new person can potentially afford the full payment on his/her own. we require a minimum of 2 years worth of maintenance in the bank. even in the case of an estate, the person has to pass the board and would be required to submit this paperwork. hope this helps.