Hi, Have you been in touch with the Board at the Osborne (205)? If not I will give you their info. Now I understand we are all in our hotels until Sunday or Monday. Good luck,
ellen

Ellen, thanks for the reply -- and yes, I've been in touch with the board president at the Osborne, who was extremely helpful. (He and a resident of my building are both on Community Board 5.) After considerable work by everyone involved, the displaced residents of my building who had no place to go are now in a hotel in the Times Square area. If the crane work on Saturday and Sunday is successful, we're supposed to able to return to our homes on Monday. Let's hope that's the case!

The police and other agencies finally allowed our residents to make emergency visits into the building to pick up medication and similar items. After the initial frostiness and rebuffs of the early days, the police were actually quite friendly and understanding when my family made our short return visit.

Lots of interesting stories to tell when this is over. It has been quite an experience.

Dear Carl, thanks for the note. My experience is exactly how u described, although I think it was too kind to call the initial police attitude frosty. They actually tried to arrest me when I tried to get by to go upstairs for my medication and such. I am in a times sq hotel now with my 2 dogs. I thought we were going to b allowed home today but apparently not. Oh well. Hotel life is not too bad! All the best, Ellen

Ellen, I'm sorry to hear that the police actually tried to arrest you for getting your medicine! That's awful. We had one couple in our building who needed their passports for an international trip and couldn't get to them. Luckily, the absolute lockout was lifted with just hours to spare.

It has been a stressful period for all of us. I spent many hours on the phone and on the computer with Extell and our residents on Wed/Thurs/Fri ensuring that everyone had a place to stay. Our contact at Extell has been working very hard to find hotel rooms and portion them out fairly. And our residents have been cooperative and responsive.

By the way, I can't stress enough how valuable it was to have an e-mail list for the whole building. I sent 173 e-mails in a 48-hour period and was able to keep everyone informed. Residents were able to let me know their own situation and also pass along news items. (We have both a 1010 WINS reporter and a CB5 member in our building.) I send all e-mails using bcc: so the e-mail addresses remain private.

Dear Carl,
Nice chatting with u. Just wanted to report that I am as snug as a bug in a rug this morning! I want to give thanks to our board members and Pres Joe Ferrara and especially our fearless building manager all who worked tirelessly to get us secured and then home.
Ellen

in short: the shareholder allowed access to the landlord to repair what the SH thought to be violations related to leaks that are the coops responsible to repair and restore.
If there was work over and above and the lessee did not notify the shareholder he might be responsible and the SH did not in any way hire or retain the contractors - then who pays?

Is this true/false, multiple choice, or essay?

Is this true/false, multiple choice, or essay?

Con Ed and National Grid have different rates. If you used gas for home heating, you would have a home heating rate (lower price due to higher amount of gas usage).
I would think that your dryer, fireplace and heating stove would all be ok under your current service, assuming the piping can handle the needed volume of gas. You could check with your plumber for his opinion as well.

The rights of the trustee will depend on both your By-Laws and the trust agreement that the shareholder and the co-op executed when the shares and lease were transferred to the trust. Let's hope there WAS such an agreement!

I can't address the specifics of your case, but I can tell you how it works with the trust-owned apartment in our own building. We required the execution of a detailed agreement before consenting to transfer ownership to the trust. Among other things, we wanted to ensure that issues of occupancy and transfer were fully spelled out. There's a specific list of people who can occupy the apartment; we don't allow any random "representative of the trust" to live there.

As for voting, our trust agreement contains this clause: "Only the Trustee shall have the right to vote the Shares unless the Trustee provides someone else with a written proxy." That may or may not correspond to any clause in your own trust agreement.

As for who (if anyone) is eligible to run for the board, you'll need to check both your agreement and your By-Laws. In our case, the trustee cannot serve on the board because our By-Laws require that all directors be residents of the building.

Please review this with your lawyer, as I am not an attorney and the answers are not clear-cut.

There was a very good article in this month's issue of Habitat about Co-op shares being put into trusts. You can find it here: http://www.habitatmag.com/Publication-Content/2012/2012-October/Featured-Articles/Attorneys-Describe-Inter-Vivos-Case#.UIYVjVFP8W8

What I took away from the article is that if the board has not formally approved the transfer of the shares into the trust, the transfer doesn't exist for legal and tax purposes regardless of what the trust or shareholder say. All Co-op stock transfers *must* be authorized by a vote of the board.

From my own perspective as a board member, I would be very wary of allowing trusts, or *any* non-human entity (corporation, LLP, LLC, etc) to own the shares, for many of the reasons stated in the article.

The first thing I would do is ask your Co-op attorney to explain the pros and cons of a trust or other non-human entity from owning shares. If you decide that you will allow it (example, an older couple who want to put the shares into trust for estate planning purposes), make sure your attorney is involved to protect the rights and interests of the Co-op.

The questions you are asking are excellent, and your attorney should be able to help you with the answers.

Speak with your board attorney about this. If you do anything without proper legal guidence you could be screwed worse than the unruly shareholder.

The book , The Coop Bible' has this tip: "if your board is smart it should demand a volume discount (with the lawyer) because often they have to file several times."

melissa,

can you explain the volume discount concept and how it would work. Our special property tax counsel for our coop building contests our assessment annually ie filing challenges once a year.

Since tax certiorari attorneys bill on a contingency fee basis, fees are based on sliding scale with larger buildings (with larger assessments) paying lower contingency fees. 15%-20% is standard depending on size of property.

http://cooperator.com/articles/941/1/Challenging-Your-Real-Estate-Taxes/Page1.html

Ask your Co-op attorney. If the attorney is hired or paid by your Sponsor, have the board engage another attorney so the board becomes her/his client and not the sponsor.

Hi,

Wow. Unless the sponsor is spending the funds in the building, this is a huge red flag. Our sponsor went bankrupt some years ago and what a mess that was (the co-op eventually received the unsold shares). You need a co-op/condo lawyer and fast.

First, remember the board has the final approval of whether of loans secured by the building's shares so the board can nix any loan against unsold shares. Second, now is the time for the board to buy the sponsor's unsold shares--by getting its own loan if it has to.
Third, Use the board's leverage to get a very good price for the shares.
Fourth, be prepared for tough negotiations but the board has the upper hand.
Fifth, Yes, get a lawyer but not the usual suspects on board of NY Co-operative Council: they usually represent sponsors or want to someday because boards hire and fire attorneys, are slow pays, argue abt fees, have trouble making decisions, etc.

You need to listen to Rita - she has been there and saved our co-op, where I am President now.

Hi Samsaunt,

Before jumping to any conclusions, I would contact the board president to find out if the guest policy was recently changed, and if it was, to what new policy. It is possible the managing agent "misinterpreted" the new policy. You might also ask for a printed copy of the revised house rules.

If the house rules were changed to a no-guest-without-owner policy, check your proprietary lease. If there is anything in the lease about guests, I believe it trumps (i.e. "your fired") the house rules.

If that doesn't work, politely ask the board president for the reason the policy was changed, and explain your situation to her/him. You may find that the rules were changed because of the advent of AirBNB, Craig's List, and the other venues where apartment owners "rent" out their apartments to strangers for very short periods of time to generate income. This is almost certainly against the rules for subletting. I realize this is not your case, but unfortunately the proliferation of these illegal sublets has caused boards to become much more restrictive with their guest policies.

As a board member, I recommend that you approach this with the idea that you and the board will be able to work out a compromise. If you can come up with ways of differentiating your situation from short-term rentals to strangers, propose them to the board. You may have to provide background info about your guests and the board may want to meet with them before the they stay in your apartment for the first time. You might even offer to pay for the managing agent to run a background check on your guests. This is not prying, but the board's way of protecting the safety and security of the other shareholders. I would do this in my building.

I'm sorry you've been caught on the cusp of a policy change, but I do understand your board's perspective. With the explosion of tourism in NYC and the corresponding dramatic increase in hotel room rates, any reasonably-priced accommodation is now very valuable. You need to work with your board to validate your personal relationship with your guests and also to prove to the board that they don't pose a threat to the building or the shareholders.

Good luck with your efforts.

Thanks for writing back, to both of you! Your input is very helpful. I totally DO understand why the board is doing this. In our interview they talked about the NYC hotel law, and that people were breaking the law by renting out their apartments. The thing is that we also made it clear in our interview, against the advice of our realtor (!), that we wanted to be able to have family and friends use the apartment occasionally, since it was not our primary residence. I feel like they must have known that they were contemplating this move, and I feel duped that they didn't tell us. I did ask for the new policy in writing, and it's very clear. It says "Under no circumstances is a Guest permitted unless you are in residence". It seems really so sad that, since we aren't "In Residence" most of the time, we can't occasionally let our close friends and families enjoy the property we just purchased. I will look at the proprietary lease, and if that doesn't work, I guess I'll try and reach out to the board. Thank you again, and if you have any other ideas, let me know!

Check your proprietary lease on this. Immediate family (parents, kids over 18, siblings) may be exempt from being classified as guests. Not a good solution but a partial one.

Another possible compromise might be to offer some sort of escrow or bond against any damages to the building or any extra expenses incurred by the building related to your guests. Clearly this would never be used, but might give the board a warmer and fuzzier feeling.

Hi Samsaunt,

I am a Board President of a 111 unit co-op in Inwood. I would check your Proprietary Lease as well. The Proprietary Lease is usually more difficult to change and usually governs. Finally, since you just bought and the Board did not disclose their new policy to you (or contemplated new policy), ask for an exception (in writing) as a way to smooth things over.

It would be quite unusual for a co-op to allow guests to stay in your apartment when you aren't there. This is often spelled out explicitly in the Proprietary Lease, and you should check yours to see what it says. In ours, which uses the same template as many other NYC co-ops, it's under Paragraph 14 (Use of Premises):

"... the apartment may be occupied from time to time by guests of the Lessee [shareholder] for a period of time not exceeding one month, unless a longer period is approved prior thereto in writing by the Lessor [co-op], but no guests may occupy the apartment unless one or more of the permitted adult residents are then in occupancy or unless consented to in writing prior thereto by the Lessor."

If your Lease explicitly allows you to have guests in your absence, which is possible but unlikely, then it's not clear the board would be able to override that provision with a House Rule. The permission to have guests at arbitrary times could be considered a material term of the lease. You'd need to ask a lawyer about that.

As a followup to the good responses you've received, you might try to work out a compromise with your board. If you can limit your stay-alone guests to one family (for example), you might find that the board is willing to make an exception. "My sister Mayella and her husband would like to stay in the apartment for two weeks every summer" is much more appetizing than "Random friends of my choice will be living here in my absence whenever I feel like it."

Also, don't try to argue that you shouldn't be bound by a new House Rule you didn't expect. That argument is going to lose. See Horwitz v. 1025 Fifth Avenue, in which a new House Rule required a shareholder to remove an awning that had been in place for *decades*. But again, if your Proprietary Lease contains the unusual provision that guests may stay in your absence, then there's a good chance a House Rule wouldn't be able to override it. A lawyer would need to address that question.