Your right a housing investment is major decision of time, money and effort. When one chooses to purchase shares in the cooperative, they agree and accept the proprietary lease, house laws, and by-laws that govern shareholders and the corporation. At the time of purchase, a shareholder accepts the theoretical and applicable differences between owning property in a house, condominium property and shares of a cooperative.
Under NY State Business Rules, Board of directors is granted wide ranging powers to govern the corporation – focusing on equitable treatment of shareholders. Policy and governing document updates are controversial.
This year we updated our sublet policy as well - to include a time limit and fee; it was a change that had not been made since the 90’s. We didn’t grandfather anyone; rather we allowed a phase out over two years until the new rules were implemented for those with current sublets, meaning they received 2 years + the time limit. I want to avoid hypotheticals, to stay focused.
We made the policy change consistent with our governing documents. Our bylaws Article I states – the primary purposes of the corporation is to provide residences for shareholders who shall be entitled solely by reason of their ownership of shares to proprietary leases … We wanted to meet this standard, while allowing some flexibility by allowing more time, but not grandfathering. We wanted to set a new policy that would be consistently followed, allow all shareholders the same opportunity and terms for subletting, and to minimize legal and financial issues for the corporation as a whole.
On Grandfathering – it’s a difficult proposition. Board’s change, managing agents change, requirements change. As a board member, a goal we strive for that treats shareholders equitably is consistency in polices. Think of all the policy’s in effect in a co-op, from the move in/move out, - Parking – laundry room – sublet and pets, etc… If these policies are updated and grandfathering occurs for each policy – managing the corporation (which the board was elected to do) becomes considerably more difficult and time consuming.
Those not happy about the decision, should reach out to the board/managing agent and see if they will meet with you to discuss your concerns (no guarantee), sometimes there are factors behind a policy change which are not communicated clearly if at all. (If you want specifics let me know)

I fully agree with this person on this bad clause being abuse by certain dictator who sat on coop for years claiming granfather clause as if they are entitled to privilege exclusively for them. for example at Sherwood Village B the coop Secretary established her own rules by unilaterally increases the amount of money ppaid when a shareholder is moving out but will exempt her when she decided to sell herself once I find out I told every shareholder who is concern to do the same that she did so we all can fall into the same category put up a sale disclosure even though we are not selling so we can get on the grandfather rule she has created to exploit our coop.Today because of all her bad rules for the past twenty years our coop is in the worst condition financially.She had a member of the Board who was selling her shares sitting on the Board interview of the new prospective tenant while discussing issues pertinent to the sale, because she uses these people as monkey to make them believe that they are part of her bad process while she is defrauding our coop.The same secretary has been on our coop Board for over twenty years and she refused to step down so the coop can grow without her stupidty,we the shareholders received our tax paper this year with the statement stating mortgage interest we had no mortgage on the Coop we have a loan that the secreatry and her cohort took and are having problems with the bank to provide our financials statement,for 06 -07 which was done this year by another accountant without full knowledge of our funds just so to satisffy the Bank Almagated which has provided the loan and we all think these people should be in jail for falsifying our record to the satisfaction of the bank.In 2010 we have just received the financials for the year 2006 2007 The coop board in my building together with the management of it make Bernie madoff look like a small ponzi schemer even though he was the biggest shark around.The politician need to help the shareholders and stop their nonsense of referring decent citizen who vote for them and work hard to pay their bills and their taxes to the New-York State Attorney general office who is much busy trying to go after Wall Street when these Board of directors in NY Coop are conducting themselve like a group of third world dictactor like The Chavez Of Venezuela. The Politician need to get involved and have these corrupt board and management company prosecuted to the full extent of the law People invest in a coop if it is good for Cooper Town and stuy it is good for all New-York housing sector of New-York City and Queens in particular have the most coop concentrated in the five boro.Even the Boro President is mute on our issue of corrupt Board members her office was notified the DA office was notified the AG office was notified habitat for all their writing about Coop were notified and what happen if you are a liar and a deceiver you get away practically free yet we all talk about honesty and it seems to me honesty is about self.

Grandfathering usually applies only to stuff that's already in place at the time the new policy is passed. If you decide to prohibit wet-over-dry renovations, pre-existing installations are grandfathered in. If you want to ban pets, you can't force people to get rid of pets they already own, but you can stop them from getting new ones. If subletting is no longer permitted, current subletters may remain until the end of their subleases, but no longer. An amorphous desire to sublet at some time in the future wouldn't be grandfathered, even to people who bought their apartments with sublet possibilities in mind.

It's a fundamental principle of co-ops that House Rules are subject to change at any time, and the Proprietary Lease may be amended by a supermajority vote of the shareholders. Everyone who buys into a co-op agrees to these terms as a condition of purchase. Policies change -- sometimes for the worse -- but as long as these policies are administered even-handedly, shareholders are bound to obey them.

(I can't help but think of people who moved to the United States around 1900, enthusiastically noting that income taxes were prohibited by the U.S. Constitution....)

It's a fundamental principle of co-ops that House Rules are subject to change at any time, and the Proprietary Lease may be amended by a supermajority vote of the shareholders. Everyone who buys into a co-op agrees to these terms as a condition of purchase. Policies change -- sometimes for the worse -- but as long as these policies are administered even-handedly, shareholders are bound to obey them.
Great way to explain it. Thank you.

Inasmuch as possible, document all instances of egregious behavior.

It is not in the shareholders’ best interest for one person to be making all of the decisions.

Carry out as much board business as possible via email. It is efficient, allows one person to communicate with several people at once, and leaves a timestamped record that can be referred to long after the fact in case of any confusion or divergence of personal recollection.

Those who are above-board and transparent in their dealings have absolutely no problem with documentation.

Insistence on purely verbal communication, ex parte private discussions, resistance to documentation — these are red flags, usually indicators that all is not on the up and up.

Document, document, document.

We have similar problems - in our coop which is an original coop, our Occupancy Agreement stated that subletting is legal upon approval of the board; however many, many years ago at an Annual Meeting the now Secretary who was President stated that subletting is illegal and nothing could move her. Now the problem is and for a long long time is that we have so many renters without legal agreements, between the lessor, lessee and board that 1) when maintenance has not been paid for years and years, in one case because there is no legal owner and we have massive legal bills to try to recoup this amount,2) renters have garage spaces, exactly what rights to these renters have - we have no documents or rules to put this into effect which is harmful to the shareholders - so what does anyone suggest in this situation

If the sponsor sold to the apartment to an investor who has never lived in the unit, then the investor is a "Holder of Unsold Shares" and may sublet to anyone in the world until the end of time without board approval or sublet fees. Sorry about that.

We have problems keeping lifeguards and want to get rid of them completely. Is this a good idea?

It's my understanding that swimming in a ccop/condo pool is prohibited when a lifeguard isn't on duty. (City pools must have them.) Check your by-laws or ask your attorney. Even if not legally required to have one, you should. A key responsibility for a coop/condo is resident safety.

What if an adult is alone at the pool and has an accident, gets a cramp while swimming, etc.? Would you let young children or teenagers use the pool without a lifeguard on duty? I'd be very concerned about that, and I think your owners would be too.

Frank, this is a muddy area and we'll appreciate your article. Our management company advised us to have work orders but it was never clear how they were to work except for materials to be charged back to the residents, not the super's time. Thank you again.

Many years ago we had a handyman, but the job was phased out. Our Super/poters now do odd jobs -- on thier own time. We have compaired what we pay, and it varies greatly, so we are very interested in your artical.

My neighbor paied the Super $50 to install his new stove -- whereas the stores charge between $150-250. Most of us pay the Super between 20-30 to install the AC into the window in the summer.

Thank you, VP

This is great info, VP. If we could, I'd love to speak with you for 7 to 10 minutes, say -- and we needed't identify your building, if you don't want -- to see how this informal system works, and what the pros and cons of a formal system with a price list might be.

I can talk to all the managing agents in the world ... but without talking to you folks on the front line, with your real-world knowledge and experience of what works, day-to-day, in practicality, then I can't do other boards as much good. Please e-mail me at flovece@habitatmag.com so that I could call you and we can talk for a couple minutes for this story.

You'd be giving other board members great help. Thanks

How do you handle the liability issue of a building employee doing private work for tenants?
If an a/c/ falls out of the window or a stove gas line explodes how does the insurance company view the work that was performed?

Is your Building Super/handyman specifically insured (privately or under the building policy) to perform such tasks?

Matt,
This is an excellent question, and I am going to look into this with the Board.
Perhaps this is something Frank could explore in his artical

If we had a legal system for work in place, we could specify the jobs, and what would be covered by insurance. Our Super is a plumber -- but otherwise I dont know...
Thanks, VP

That's absolutely something the article covers. Got to hand it to our ever-astute readers to know what's needed! And while I've spoken with managing agents and attorneys for this piece, I could sure still use a board-member with first-hand, in-the-trenches experience! flovece@habitatmag.com

Charges for work: Our building has people living on fixed incomes, (now unemployment) and people who have no finincial worries... Therefore if there is a pricing list, perhaps it should list the minimun gratuity.

Gratuity? Perhaps if its called a gratuity, as oppose to payment/employment,,,this would have an impact on the Insurance question????

FL, could you post your number and I will call you... Thanks...VP

Hit me with an e-mail at flovece@habitatmag.com and I'll send a phone number; I'm not in the office today. Thanks!

Do they do an audit of your current usage and tell you where you can save? For a NYSERDA Smart Loan, we used a consultant from L&S Energy Services. Ron Slosberg, 518-383-9405 x.216 (rslosberg@ls-energy.com) and the Board was happy with his work.

We managed a 734-unit Condo in Brooklyn for 15 years that had a dedicated pool company to open, staff and close the pool. Lenny Moroff is the owner of Trident Recreatio.

Website here: http://poolmanagementservices.com/

Try some of the following web sites.

Superintendents Club of New York
Emereald Guild Association
Hibernia providence society

You can also do an independent web search of superintendent/handyman orgainizations in NY as there are many more out there

Best of luck Bob.

Thank you, I will do just that