Page 16 - The NY Cooperator August 2019

16 THE COOPERATOR —AUGUST 2019 COOPERATOR.COM Since 1958, out clients have been assured of excellence in building management. Our management team provides capable and cordial service to our clients. We make certain the systems are running, the halls are tidy, and the budget is on target. We know that our success is measured by our client’s well-being. At Buchbinder & Warren, we understand your apartment is not just an investment...it’s a home. Please call us to learn more about our services. One Union Square West • New York, NY 10003 212.243.6722 QUALITY OF LIFE www.buchbinderwarren.com 60 Cutter Mill Road, Suite 303 Great Neck, NY 11021 Phone: (516) 466-3100 www.MajesticPropertyMGT.com Specializing in: • Quality Management Services • In-House Expertise in Cooperative/Condo: › Budgeting/Financial Planning, Taxes, Insurance • Cooperative/Condo Sales • “24/7” Emergency Answering Service • General Contracting and Supervision of Capital Improvement Projects M ajestic PROPERTY MANAGEMENT CORP. A Leader in Propetrty Management for 30 Years ally pretty receptive, and want to get their work completed before the dead- line. “There are a tremendous amount of elevators out there. We try not to incon- venience the residents, so we do mostly surveying and engineering on the week- ends.” Typically, work requires a two-person team: one mechanic and one helper. Each installation is a two-day-per-elevator job. The number of floors in a building doesn’t have significant impact on the length of the job, but the number of ele- vators does. So a building with one eleva- tor is usually a two-day job, explains Cor- rado, but a building with five elevators would take 10 days or more, or multiple teams to complete the job more quickly. But not everything is going to be smooth sailing by the time the deadline comes around. “In a month or so,” says Breglio, “we will have to tell customers we may not be able to finish their work by January 1, 2020. The manufacturers are also backlogged. It’s like a snowball effect.” Meanwhile, the City has not in- dicated what penalties or other conse- quences non-compliant buildings may face. Corrado says that while the work may be viewed as an inconvenience by many, it is for the best, and was the right response on the part of the City. Safety must always come first before cost and convenience. n AJ Sidransky is a staff writer at The Co- operator, and a published novelist. COMPANIES... continued from page 6 While a spokesperson for Brookfield, the owner of the towers, characterized the Post story as false, and Amazon re- fused to comment, several brokers and strategists see plentiful reasons why Am- azon would look to expand its presence in the Big Apple despite the HQ 2 pullout from Long Island City. “\[Amazon’s\] look- ing to expand and get into advertisement and media,” local broker Eric Benaim told the Commercial Observer, “and if you want to be in those sectors you do have to be in New York.” Regardless as to how these individu- al deals pan out, Jeff Bezos’s Manhattan footprint appears unlikely to diminish anytime soon—even if some locals have been less than enthused about his com- pany’s presence. n Mike Odenthal is a staff writer at The Co- operator. REPORT:... continued from page 6 He also explains that unless some- thing is spelled out explicitly in the governing documents, it is extremely difficult to move against an owner with ejection. “If it’s not specifically spelled out in the governing documents, \[then\] no,” says Hakim. Leased Units and Evictions Leasing out a condominium unit is a much easier proposition than subletting a co-op, one of the main reasons people buy condos over co-ops. At the same time, it’s a lot easier for a co-op board to remove a sub-lessor than for a condo association to extricate a tenant from a unit leased by its owner. Hakim explains that even if a tenant in an owned unit is breaking the condo- minium association’s rules, the associa- tion is not in a position to remove the tenant. It doesn’t have privity—the legal term for a close, mutual or successive relationship to the same right of prop- erty -- or the power to enforce a prom- ise or warranty, an important concept in contract law. The association has only a ‘right-of-first-refusal’ over leasing or sale of a unit at the time of sale or lease. If the association doesn’t exercise that right at that time, it can’t be exercised later. The only circumstance in which the association might have some rights to move against the offending tenant is if there is something very specific in the governing documents about allowing the condominium to take action against a unit owner’s tenant. If it’s not in the documents, the association likely does not have legal standing. Perhaps most interestingly is that if a unit owner has a defaulting tenant-- i.e., the renter stops paying the rent for the unit--the association has no position or obligation to help the owner to collect rents. That unit belongs to the owner. So if the tenant defaults, the unit owner must take action to collect the rent or evict the tenant. But if the unit owner defaults on payment of common charg- es, the association can begin an action to foreclose, collect rent through a re- ceiver, and ultimately eject the owner. n AJ Sidransky is a staff writer at The Co- operator and a published novelist. WHEN IT’S TIME... continued from page 6