Case Notes in

Alterations

Author
First published: May 2005
Arnold v. No 24 Gramercy Park Inc.

The co-op had granted Arnold permission to alter his apartment and install a central air conditioning system. When the co-op board members had second thoughts about this installation, they acted as if the permission was conditional and revocable despite any evidence that this was the case. Levandusky was no defense for the board’s breach of contract liability. This was not a case where the business judgment rule could protect the board’s efforts to alter the consent. Perhaps most significantly, the decision here holds that the shareholder may recover his legal fees from the co-op because of a statutory provision in the Real Property Law for the benefit of tenants. This should give other co-op boards pause before trying to alter binding contracts with shareholders.

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First published: Apr 2004
Babeli v. East 13th Street Tenant Corp.

Once a shareholder in a co-op embarks upon an apartment alteration with co-op approval, it is very difficult to stop such alteration without a clear and compelling reason as long as the work is proceeding as authorized. In other words, once an apartment alteration is approved, a co-op does not have the option of changing its mind and stopping the work.

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First published: Apr 2002
Farnsworth v. Wells

The result here was predictable. There was no proof that the wall had been moved. Also, the plaintiff waited a long time to pursue this claim. As a result, the sympathy of the court was not invoked. Indeed, other defenses such as laches, waiver, and estoppel probably could have been raised by the defendant to support dismissal of the claim.

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