Mom Fumes When Co-op Board Asks to Interview Her Child

May 27, 2015 — Won't somebody please think of the children? That's what one outraged parent wants the city to do after the co-op board at a posh building in Tudor City instructed her to bring her kid along to her interview. In the dog-eat-dog world that is New York City real estate you have potential buyers jumping through the hoops of the admissions process, which, for pet owners, may include taking your pet to the admissions interview so the board can give Fido or Fluffy a once-over. So if you have to let the board scrutinize your dog, is it okay for it to want to screen your kid, too? Joyce Kacin thinks that's just going too far. DNAinfo reports that, according to Kacin, "co-op board members at Woodstock Tower have instructed buyers to bring along their kids to interviews that determine whether they get apartments" — calling it a first for the city. According to the report, Kacin sent a complaint about it last year to state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Mayor Bill de Blasio, "claiming the co-op board made the unusual request to her — and that it was discriminatory." Kacin argued that asking parents to bring their children along to an admissions interview violates the city's Human Rights Law, "which makes it illegal to reject a purchaser for having a kid." It looks like things ended well for Kacin, who apparently buried the hatchet with the board president once it dropped its request to meet the kid after receiving a letter from Kacin explaining why she did not want to bring him along. While Kacin raises some valid issues, is it really that unusual for a board to want to meet a prospective buyer's child or children in person? DNAinfo says that most of the real estate experts it spoke to about Kacin's situation called the Woodstock board’s request to meet her child unique. One of them, however, said otherwise. Real estate law expert Adam Leitman Bailey told the publication that "the board was legally allowed to interview children, so long as the parents accompany the child and it doesn’t reject the potential buyer solely on the basis of having a kid" under New York law. Bailey points out that this is, after all, the city where five year olds "are interviewed to get into kindergarten."