A distinguished panel of New York co-op/condo attorneys analyze recent NY co-op/condo decisions. Subscribers receive a monthly PDF Digest of these case summaries and takeaways, an Advance Sheet of co-op/condo court cases recently decided, and access to the searchable Tracker database.
Take a Test Drive for $1Addressing the specific and unique needs of today’s niche community of New York's co-op and condo professionals, Case Law Tracker does the heavy lifting—combing through and drawing out the cases most relevant to your needs.
Case Summaries
Focusing only on co-op and condo cases, practicing attorneys in this field prepare case summaries and useful takeaways - helping you understand what the case is about so you can quickly determine if it benefits you.
Case View
Our Quick View feature enables you to instantly determine if the case is relevant to your needs and provides you with a fast click to the full details of the case including judges, case history, as well as an active slip op link to related court documents.
Monthly Digest & Monthly Advance Sheet
A pdf Digest of all co-op/condo cases added to the database is emailed monthly to you. Plus, to keep you up to date on what the courts have most recently decided, you'll receive, monthly, an Advance Sheet with case names, decision and docket links, judges, and brief decision excerpts.
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Advisory Panel
Our experienced advisory committee, comprised of industry-specific experts who truly understand the issues that matter to you, write the case summaries. They know what you need to know and help you get to that information as quickly and easily as possible.
Case Watch
Emailed twice-monthly, Case Watch focus on providing insight on one particularly relevant case—clearly explaining what happened, why it’s important, and what lessons can be learned within. Case Watch reaches two audiences: lawyers who subscribe to the Co-op & Condo Case Law Tracker and Habitat Magazine subscribers (co-op and condo board directors, property managers and other industry professionals).
Case Notes provides insight on one particularly relevant co-op or condo case—clearly explaining what happened, why it’s important, and what lessons can be learned within.
TAKEAWAY This case is an important reminder that boards should not assume their governing documents or insurance policies automatically protect owners from lawsuits brought by the building’s insurer. If a board wants to limit subrogation claims against unit owners or shareholders, the waiver language in both the governing documents and the insurance policies must be clear, direct, and consistent. Vague phrases such as “if obtainable” or “may waive” may not provide the protection boards and residents think they do. Boards should periodically review their bylaws, proprietary leases, alteration agreements, and insurance policies with experienced legal and insurance professionals to confirm that coverage and waiver provisions reflect the building’s intentions. For a unit owner to suddenly learn that they can be sued by the building’s insurance company when there is damage can be a rather startling, and expensive, surprise.
Read full articleTAKEAWAY This case is a useful reminder that shareholders' rights to inspect books and records are broad, and courts have consistently enforced them. The bar for a "valid purpose" is not high — organizing a special shareholder meeting and communicating with fellow shareholders about corporate matters clears it. Boards that refuse these requests, or try to work around them by offering to relay information on a shareholder's behalf, are unlikely to prevail in court. The one win for the co-op here was the denial of the engineering and construction records, because Levy couldn't connect those documents to his stated purpose of calling a special meeting. That illustrates an important principle: a shareholder's request must be tied to a purpose reasonably related to their interest as a shareholder, and courts will trim requests that overreach. Before fighting a books-and-records demand, boards should carefully assess whether the request is well-founded. Unless a request overreaches, fails to supply a valid purpose, or raises some comparable deficiency, courts have routinely granted them — making litigation an expensive and uncertain path for the board.
Read full articleTHE LESSON FOR BOARDS This is one of the rare occasions where the board of a condominium had seemingly done things right. Even so, they were sued. The board learned of a leak in a water main and fixed it within 10 days. In light of the fact that the board would have to meet, decide which plumber to hire, and decide on which of two repair options the engineering firm presented, the 10 days seems reasonable. The one action the board did not take was the fatal one, and this resulted in the court rejecting the board’s request for a dismissal of the negligence claim. The court determined that the board’s failure to turn off the water (resulting in continued flooding onto the neighbor’s property) may have indeed been negligence. A more careful analysis of the entire situation, and how it would affect the adjacent property, might have saved the board and the condominium from a potentially costly claim of negligence.
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