What Happens When a Shareholder's Objectionable Behavior Gets Downright Scary?

May 28, 2015 — We all have at least one neighbor from hell story: he has parties every weekend, she smokes, he stomps up and down at all hours, she puts the television on ridiculously loud at the crack of dawn every day (including weekends), he smokes weed constantly, she has loud parties every weekend. The list is endless and usually filled with issues that are understandably annoying, but usually not scary. But sometimes these things escalate, and objectionable conduct has led to eviction. Objectionable conduct is the topic of this week's Ask An Expert column on Brickunderground. "My neighbor has broken into my apartment, vandalized my door, issued death threats to me and my family (I have this on video). He screams at me and other neighbors through our walls — the list goes on. He has multiple police reports for harassment from multiple neighbors, but my building just keeps telling me to document incidents (which I have been)," a shareholder writes to Brickunderground. The shareholder wants to know what he can do to start an eviction process. According to the shareholder, "everyone in [the] building and board wants him removed and so do the lawyers … yet no one will take action against him." It's a situation that's beyond frustrating. It's downright scary and highlights just how time-consuming the eviction process can be, even with all the documented incidents. Brickunderground's experts advise the shareholder to consider getting a restraining order. "Because of the inherent delays in the Housing Court proceedings that would be entailed in evicting a shareholder, a quicker and likely more effective response would be to secure an order of protection from the local precinct," says real estate attorney Dean Roberts of Norris, McLaughlin & Marcus. As for giving this apparent neighbor from hell the boot, the experts agree "there's no reason for [the] neighbors, the board, or the building's lawyers to be dragging their feet…. One of the perks to living in a co-op in this situation is that there's protocol to evict a wayward shareholder, a process that's much more difficult in a condo building." It's still a lengthy process, but there's no time like the present to get that ball rolling.