Case Notes
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.
Category
- Access
- Alterations
- Appeals
- Arbitration
- Assessment
- Attorney Fees
- Attorney-Client
- Authority to Sue
- Balcony/Terrace Rights
- Bike Lane
- Board of Directors
- Books and Records
- Breach of Lease
- Business Judgment Rule
- Bylaws
- Bylaws/House Rules
- Certificate of Occupancy
- Charges/Fees
- Commercial Unit
- Common Element
- Common Elements
- Companion Animal
- Constitutionality
- Construction Defects
- Contracts
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- Defamation
- Discovery
- Discrimination
- Due Diligence
- Easement
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- Eviction/Termination
- Fiduciary Duty
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- Fraud
- Governance
- Gym
- House Rules
- Indemnification
- Indemnification/Subrogation
- Injunction
- Insurance
- Labor Law
- Liability of Directors
- Licenses
- Liens
- Maintenance
- Malpractice
- Management
- Mechanic's Lien
- Mediation
- Misrepresentations
- Motion Practice
- Motion Practive
- Negligence
- Notice of Pendency
- Nuisance
- Occupancy Agreement
- Ownership
- Parking
- Partnership
- Personal Injury
- Pets
- Property Damage
- Proprietary Lease
- Reasonableness
- Receivership
- Release
- Repairs
- Representations
- Sales
- Service of Process
- Sponsor
- Statute of Limitations
- Stock/Shares
- Stocks/Shares
- Sublets
- Succession Rights
- Tax
- Third-Party Liability
- Transfers
- Trespassing
- Trial Practice
- Violations
- Warranty of Habitability
- Yellowstone Injunction
- Zoning
First published: Jul 2003
Lesal Associates v. Board of Managers, Downing Court CondominiumThis is not an unusual case where a board of managers, dominated by the interests of residential unit-owners and controlling a substantial majority on the board, seeks to reallocate common charges to lessen the burden on the residential unit-owners. Here, the effort failed and the court refused to sanction the reallocation. The question is can efforts to achieve this goal elsewhere succeed because the non-residential unit-owners are loathe to challenge the board?
Read full articleFirst published: Jun 2003
Rahman v. Board of Managers of Yardarm CondominiumThis case is somewhat surprising because the insurance was inadequate. It seems that the board got poor advice about the appropriate amount of coverage that was available even if it required payment of an additional premium. It is a good lesson about the need for a co-op or condo board to obtain and follow first-rate advice from competent professional advisers when obtaining property and liability insurance coverage, even in this time of significant increases in insurance premiums.
Read full articleFirst published: May 2003
Feld v. 710 Park Avenue Corp.This foiled attempt to bar Feld from board service for being at odds with the current board must be viewed as outrageous. The case illustrates the difficulties a co-op or condo board faces when it seeks to bar a dissident from service, especially where cumulative voting is provided in the entity's bylaws.
Read full articleFirst published: Apr 2003
Gramercy Park Residence Corp. v. EllmanThis was a victory for the co-op, which obtained all the relief it sought in light of the shareholder's intransigence to allow needed repairs. One must wonder what impelled this shareholder to resist legitimate board action. Perhaps poor legal advice?
Read full articleFirst published: Mar 2003
Barbour v. KnechtA lower court decision that board consent was not required for this transfer was reversed. The co-op documents and the history of prior transfers, all of which mandated board approval, were the controlling factors, despite a shareholders' agreement and the fact that the purchaser was already a shareholder. This decision reinforces the standard co-op requirement of the need for board approval of apartment transfers.
Read full articleFirst published: Jan 2003
Amato v. HirdReal estate contracts in the New York metropolitan area including co-op purchase and sale agreements normally provide for a 10 percent deposit on account of the purchase price. Invariably, this deposit is held in escrow until the closing when it is paid to the seller. If the sale fails to take place because some contingency in the contract does not occur, the purchaser would normally have his deposit returned. If the sale fails to occur because of the seller's breach, the normal remedy is an action for specific performance to compel the conveyance of a unique piece of real estate. If the sale fails to occur because of the purchaser's breach, the deposit is virtually always retained by the seller as liquidated damages. This case holds that a 10 percent deposit qualified as liquidated damages and not a penalty. If, in another contract for the purchase and sale of a co-op, there was a provision for a 20 percent deposit, could this also serve as liquidated damages and not a penalty if so specified in the contract? The answer is maybe, as the decision would depend on all of the facts and circumstances that justified an increase in the standard deposit from 10 to 20 percent.
Read full articleFirst published: Dec 2002
Teitelbaum v. Woodbury Village Condo-minium IIThe result in this case is somewhat surprising. The "irrevocably restricted" common element is normally called a "limited" common element meaning that its use is restricted to a single unit, although traditionally the cost of maintenance of the space is a common expense. Here, the cost of maintenance was held to be the responsibility of the unit owner. The result suggests the importance of reading the condominium documents carefully and realizing that specific provisions govern which may produce a result at odds with expectations.
Read full articleFirst published: Nov 2002
Mariaux v. Turtle Bay Towers Corp.As is customary in most New York metropolitan area co-op proprietary leases, responsibility for terrace repairs is specified either to belong to the co-op or the shareholder of the apartment that enjoys exclusive use of the terrace. In this case, the lease was quite clear that responsibility for such repairs was assigned to the shareholders. An effort to challenge this result failed here and the board's right to enforce the lease provisions was reinforced by the landmark 1990 Levandusky case, which requires courts to give broad deference to board decisions when adhering to the Business Judgment Rule.
Read full articleFirst published: Oct 2002
Steele v. 400 East 77th Street Corp.This is the latest illustration of what a co-op board can face when it rejects an apartment purchaser who is a member of a protected class, who then claims that such rejection was based on improper discrimination. In this case, where the board set forth permissible grounds to justify the rejection, the court was unwilling to accept such grounds to dismiss the discrimination claim. Instead, the court ordered pretrial discovery to afford the plaintiffs an opportunity to refute the co-op's position. Thus, the claim remains and the co-op is forced to incur further defense costs.
Read full articleFirst published: Oct 2002
Young v. Total Community Management Corp.By Richard Siegler, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan The result in this case was not surprising. There was no bailment. The condominium-owner merely parked his car in the common parking area. Neither the condominium association nor its managing agent was given specific custody of the unit-owner's car. It was left unattended in the association's parking lot. This is not enough to make the condominium association or its managing agent an insurer of the automobile's condition. There was no delivery of custody which would impose a bailee's liability on the condominium or its managing agent.
Read full article