Regulated Co-op Admissions Already Law in Suffolk County. How's It Working?

At The Commons at North Babylon, in Suffolk County, co-op board president Linda Bacchi says there has been no negative fallout. "The time frames are not a problem, and if we need to, we have a special interview meeting," she says. "I feel that if you are rejecting someone they deserve a reason. You have to put yourself on the other side – we were all there in the other seat at some point. Wouldn't you want to know why you were rejected?"

Alvin Wasserman, director of asset management at Fairfield Properties, says the law is working very well. "I can't think of a single instance where this has prompted litigation," says Wasserman, whose company manages about 2,000 co-op units on Long Island. "All of the [ambiguous] reasons why a board might reject someone are gone now. Now, it's only about the financials." 

He also argues the time clocks are fair. "If people don't get an answer in a reasonable time, they can lose their loan commitment, and that can take months to get again," he says. 

Different in NYC?

Suffolk County's experiences, however, don't apply to New York City, says Bob Friedrich, president of the 110-building, 10,000-resident Glen Oaks Village complex in Queens. "We have so many more co-ops, you're far more likely to have increases in litigation just because of the sheer numbers."

He also argues co-ops have many occasions when they might need to reject an applicant without stating a reason, recalling the example of a prospective shareholder who arrived for an interview obviously intoxicated. The board rejected him, but had they been forced to list that as a reason, an attorney "would have argued, 'How did you know he was drinking? This is arbitrary and capricious.' Then you'd have a lawsuit and a year down the road we might have won but we'd [have spent] thousands to win." 

Still, argues Barbara Ford, an attorney and a director for the New York State Association of Realtors, the concept of giving a reason for rejection is not foreign in housing: Federal law requires that mortgage lenders give customers a reason if they reject them for a loan.

"Housing is such an important part of our culture," says Ford. She notes that before the Suffolk law was passed, she received monthly calls from people suspecting they had been discriminated against. "After that bill passed, I haven't gotten a single call," or heard of any litigation.

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