Page 15 - CooperatorNews New York June 2022

COOPERATORNEWS.COM COOPERATORNEWS — JUNE 2022 15 attorneys lawgapc.com @ www.lawgapc.com NORTHERN NEW JERSEY 973-366-1188 CENTRAL NEW JERSEY 732-514-6601 SOUTHERN SO NEW JERSEY 856-533-2379 NEW YORK 212-374-9790 PENNSYLVANIA 973-366-1188 ATTORNEYS AT LAW ▶ Wills, Trusts and Estate Law ▶ Municipal Law ▶ General Litigation ▶ Commercial Law ▶ Business Startups ▶ Community Association Law ▶ Landlord Tenant Law ▶ Land Use and Zoning Law ▶ Disability Law ▶ Real Estate Law and Closings Experienced attorneys providing the right moves towards achieving your endgame STRONG ADVOCATES LISTEN ATTENTIVELY WORK RELENTLESSLY RESOLVE CONFLICT Providing Practical Legal Advice and Representation to Cooperative and Condominium Associations for More Than Forty Years • General Counsel • Residential and Commercial Real Estate and Leasing • Real Estate and Commercial Litigation • Mortgage Financing • Commercial, Corporate and Business Law • Comme • Mitchell-Lama Housing • Transfer Agent Services • Construction Law and Gas Conversions Jack Lepper: jlepper@kll-law.com Ronald Gold: rgold@kll-law.com Adam Finkelstein: afinkelstein@kll-law.com Fran Lawless: flawless@kll-law.com Fran L willing to participate and agree to bind- ing arbitration. A limitation of ADR is that the matter cannot be guided by legal precedents or discovery rules, which are available in litigation, Ciarlo adds. “Also, many times, a party will use ADR as a stall tactic and will eventually decide to stop negotiating, which will lead to litiga- tion anyway.” Hoever says that dealing with any con- flict needs to be direct and to the point, and the quicker you handle things, the better. “Keep in mind that the truth is proba- bly somewhere in the middle of what the two sides are telling you,” he says. “And above all, stay impartial and try to build consensus between the two sides.” n Keith Loria is a freelance writer and a con- tributor to CooperatorNews. Rita Sprudzs, a senior property manager also with Westward360, outlines another common problem: “Many times, co-op shareholders don’t understand that they don’t actually own the space they occupy. They are shareholders in a corporation that owns the property. They have a proprietary lease for their unit that is assigned to them by the corporation that owns the building.” This misapprehension can lead to a great deal of frustration and acrimony when a shareholder’s plans to alter or upgrade their unit butts up against the board’s author- ity—and duty—to review and approve (or reject) those plans based on how they may impact other units, or the building’s shared elements, including wiring, plumbing, or infrastructure. “Another common issue is that many condo owners think their board has as much power as a co-op board to intervene in quality-of-life disputes, such as noisy neighbors,” says Stuart Halper, principal of Impact Management, a New York-based management firm, “but they don’t. A con- do board cannot remove an owner due to ‘bad behavior.’ If you have an inconsiderate neighbor, the board can’t do a thing.” Wollman agrees. “The board’s role is to set policy and procedure,” he says. “A man- ager carries it out. New owners usually go to the super or managing agents in New York buildings. They know there’s a board, but generally don’t understand what the board’s role is. In the city, though, it’s typi- cal for people to go directly to the super or agent if they lived in an apartment before.” That may differ from communities where the residents are less familiar with multi- family living. Staszczak says that another major is- sue that’s especially common in condo- minium associations is owners not really understanding percentage ownership and common areas. “Percentage of ownership seems to be a major source of confusion for new owners,” he says. The idea that the more space you have, the more percentage share you have—and hence the higher your monthly assessment—escapes many. “They want to know why different residents pay different monthly assessments, because they don’t understand percentage owner- ship and how that affects them.” When it comes to common areas or elements, most new owners just think of a community room, an in-house gym, or garden-style courtyard—but the building’s infrastructure, including façade and roof, boiler and HVAC equipment, plumbing and electrical systems, as well as lobbies, hallways, and storage areas are also com- mon elements, and as such are maintained and repaired using funds from residents’ monthly fees to the condo association or co-op. Commensurate with this problem is a lack of understanding of budgets. “Resi- dents may not understand how budgets are built,” says Sprudzs, “and so they don’t understand where their monthly mainte- nance goes, or the difference between types of line items, like fixed vs. variable costs. First-time owners also often don’t under- stand what type of insurance they them- selves need. Renter’s insurance is not good enough \\\[for a condo or co-op\\\]. They need \\\[homeowners or\\\] co-op insurance. Renter’s doesn’t cover individual unit owner re- sponsibility for common areas in an insur- ance claim.” Relatedly, “New owners also often think the co-op or condo is responsible for re- pairs inside their units,” says Halper. “They don’t understand they own the interiors and what’s in them, and are responsible for them.” A good example is a refrigerator. If your refrigerator stops working in a rental, you call the landlord. In a co-op or condo, because everything on your side of the walls is your property, you have to replace it yourself. A more complicated example is a clogged sink. If the clog is in a portion of pipe inside the wall, the co-op or condo owns it, and therefore has to repair it, and pay for the repair. If the clogged section of pipe is inside an individual unit, the unit owner or shareholder has to fix it—and foot the bill. Not understanding the distinction between private and common elements, and how that distinction determines who’s responsible for what is at the root of a great many disputes between residents, boards, and property managers. How Common is the Problem? In a word, pervasive. The problem of owner and shareholder ignorance spans co-ops and condos, HOAs, and over-55 communities. Younger buyers upgrading from rentals and older buyers downsizing from private homes are often ignorant of not only rules and lifestyle conventions in their new communities, but of the docu- ments governing those communities. ORIENTING... continued from page 1 continued on page 16