Our client, a shareholder in a landmarked, prestigious cooperative apartment building faced a unique challenge:the cooperative was responsible for maintaining the windows in his unit that were installed in mid-century and pivoted in and out. However, the cooperative failed to maintain the windows and a leaking condition ensued. When the shareholder sought to have the Full Article…
How To Overcome Tenant Resistance To An MCI Application
By: Adam Leitman Bailey & Dov Treiman September, 2014 Part I: How To Overcome Tenant Resistance To An MCI Application I. General Overview Major Capital Improvement Increases (MCI’s) are a concept that parties can contract for if they are not subject to rent regulation. However, generally speaking, unregulated residential tenants rarely do contract for them. Full Article…
Housing Development Fund Corporations: Is Now The Right Time to Privatize?
By: Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. September 1st, 2014 In the 1970s the City created HDFCs via Land Disposition Agreements (LDAs) to promote developing blighted and underdeveloped areas into affordable housing. The LDAs transferred land to cooperative housing corporations in exchange for the promise that those cooperatives would adhere to strict principles to create and maintain Full Article…
Courts Rule on Underfunded Condominium Reserve Funds
By: Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. Sponsors of condominium conversions really only have two material obligations: to convert the form of ownership and fund the reserve fund. The formula for determining the amount of the reserve fund is set forth in New York Administrative Code Section 26-702(b) (the “Reserve Fund Law”). Historically, sponsors have interpreted the Full Article…
How to Use A Tenants’ Association to Defeat an MCI Application
I. General Overview Major Capital Improvement Increases (MCI’s) are a concept that parties can contract for if they are not subject to rent regulation. However, generally speaking, unregulated residential tenants rarely do contract for them. They are therefore, in a practical sense, uniquely belonging to the world of rent regulation and are a means whereby Full Article…
Q&A: Setting Aside Accessible Parking
By: Adam Leitman Bailey & John Desiderio August 1st, 2014 Q: Who owns the handicapped parking spaces set aside in the parking facility of a newly constructed condominium? Keeping it Accessible in Kings County A: “Sponsors of newly constructed condominiums are responsible for creating the condominium as a legal entity and for constructing the physical Full Article…
What You Must Know When Negotiating a Rooftop Antenna Contract,” The Cooperator
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman September 1st, 2009 As the trilogy of real estate values rising, building usage changing, and cellphone and Internet communications became universal, wireless telecommunications companies became popular defendants in the Commercial Part of New York’s Civil Court. Owners began examining their rooftop antenna agreements to determine means to terminate Full Article…
Business Judgment Rule: No Free Pass to Board Action
By: Adam Leitman Bailey & John M. Desiderio June 11th, 2014 The past 12 months has been the year unit owners and shareholders have found cooperative and condominium board of director’s kryptonite at the appellate courts. For years, the courts of New York have been rubber stamping board decisions under the shield of the business Full Article…