If I donate money to my co-op, can I get a tax deduction? As I understand it, cooperatives are supposed to be not-for-profit organizations.
What percentage of units in a coop will make a bank think twice about granting mortgages to new purchasers (or refinancing the coop's mortgage)?
Put another way, what percentage of owner-occupancy do banks want to see before they will grant mortage loans in the building?
i have been in this co-op since pre conversion in the early 1980's.
80/20 has always been the ratio of owners occupiers to non owner occupied, including unsold shares.
i noticed the building was going downhill and there were very few people that wanted to get involved, in anything. i also saw that all the shareholder committees ,such as garden, decorating ,garage, no longer existed
i had to argue with the Managing agent and i refused to take no for an answer, or the "he has 20 years experience and he knows the rules not me, etc. i stood my ground and got the shareholder list.
recently another long term shareholder requested the shareholder list and was giving the same bs no by the same MA, she had spoke to me, and stood her ground and got the list.
i see about 50% owner occupied now, and the board president is trying to get another friend of mine , who is trying to sell , to consider renting rather than selling, since his kid is getting married and need an apartment . in the non owner occupied that aren't classified as subleases or unsold shares, the shareholder is the parent , who never moved into the apartment, their child did.
however per out proprietary lease,par 14 states shareholder "and" , not "or", for those that know this issue and the deciding court case.
The board president and managing company, say this is OK, i have noticed that most of the recent sale of co-ops have been to this arrangement. Investors , which are not good for a co-op
They do not pay sublease fee's, however the shareholders that have permission to sublease, have to pay these sublease fee's.
Any thoughts on how i should deal with this? any legal action i can take? all those sublease fees not being paid, and we have been getting hit with assessments back to back.,
The building has gone downhill drastically in the last 10 years. That is when the new board got into play and allowed all this .
i was injured and became disabled 10 years ago, so i had my hands full, i still have my hands full,
But i don't like living in a building where no one cares., which is what we have now, more like a low level rental building. When the building converted we had all kinds of committees,grounds and garden, garage,even a monthly bulletin, and this was before the Internet.
Now we have zero , due to a board president who i consider shady, refuses any transparency, doesn't like questions concerning financial s, and who is constantly self dealing regarding parking spaces, which are golden in this area. Even the board president and wife no longer live here, nor are their address on the shareholder sheet listed as the the co-ops address. His adult kids occupy the apartment.
thanks for any help
I'm a renter and my co-op board goes up on my rent every year by $20. The start of this year I got a $50 increase, is that legal? And they never want to take care of my repairs, I have a faucet leak for a year now.
Hi Everyone,
It has been a long year as we drive our co-op to a higher standard. Using experienced gained on different boards, I have tried to create an atmosphere of transparency for the serving officers of the board, building staff and our managing agent. Our managing agent is our sponsor and despite attempts to make a change, it’s not going to happen with the current board makeup.
Change is in the air, and I might just be part of it.
I want to get your feedback about the actions, processes, and procedures that work for your boards. I understand what works for one building, might not apply to another, but best practices will make all of our communities stronger.
I’m listing some of the issues
Here are some issues for concern at my co-op
1) Board meetings are held with the managing agent at the building weekly during working hours – no exception – Makes it difficult to actively participate and discourages others from running for the board.
2) Minutes have not been recorded in years even though our Prop lease designates the secretary to “cause” minutes to be recorded. Our secretary is the sponsor and managing agent.
3) Bids, documents, violations, anything co-op related are often times only provided for one or two board members, which are then, suppose to copy or pass to the other members.
4) Managing agent contacts don’t use email.
5) Financials are only given to one member of the residential purchasing board members usually at the third Friday, meaning we don’t receive financial information until two months have past...
Things have gotten better in the year since we joined– several new members such as myself are playing the managing agent role – reaching out and meeting with vendors, suppliers etc, and taking off time from work to be involved – however this is not sustainable.
We want to continue to make progress, so suggestions, feedback and comments about things that work are appreciated.
It will help keep up the pressure for change, because at the end of the day we love our building, and recognize that we want it to be a home and we want to be involved and do the right thing.
Thank You all and I hope you have a great weekend.
Hi all
Has anyone any experience with those systems for boiler/heat during winter season. Ours is kinda old and not very efficient.
One sensor outside and only one inside to pick up heat on one steam pipe.
Has any of you recently upgraded ? did it live up to your expectations in terms of savings etc ...
thanks
ps: i watched the "ask the experts" on this site.
We are a 200 family garden apartment complex sitting on almost 14 acres of land. One of our shareholders is requesting to have the Corporation's maintenance personnel do a door to door distribution, during regular working hours, at Corporate expense, of a newsletter put out by a non profit group. The shareholder in question is of course involved with this particular organization.
In the past we have been reluctant to allow the distribution for the following reasons:
*The co-op has no affiliation with this group.
*The newsletter contains advertising. It might appear that the board is endorsing those businesses or services.
*There is also concern that shareholders may perceive the board as being responsible for or endorsing the newsletter's content.
*Many of our shareholders are involved in different organizations. Where do we draw the line on this type of distribution? How do we grant one request and refuse another?
*These various groups do of course have the right to distribute any materials at their own expense or using volunteer labor.
Taking all the above into consideration, do you feel these distributions using Corporate personnel should be permitted and does your co-op/condo have a policy concerning this type of activity?
Thanks in advance for your input.
The new city regulation requires painting the sprinkler piping but exempts horizontal branch piping. We understand that the vertical risers have to be painted, but which pipes are considered branch piping?
Are the pipes which have the sprinkler heads on them considered branches and don't have to be painted?
Verizon gives a co-op building a $$ bonus for allowing access to install FIOS in the building.
how many buildings split the money with the managing company? The board president wants to give half the money to the managing company for the extra work involved with the FIOS installation.
We are suffering financially and just had two major jobs that resulted in two assessment.
one of the jobs, the installation of a waterproof membrane, i will go into in another post
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You are kidding right? Never heard of that right-off!
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