Page 6 - The NY Cooperator August 2019

6 THE COOPERATOR —AUGUST 2019 COOPERATOR.COM COOPERATOR.COM I t’s a very unpleasant but often common situation in community living: the mo- ment when the association has to evict or eject an owner or tenant. It could be for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to the delinquency of the person to pay his or her share in order to keep the community running. Co-op owners own shares in a corporation that owns the building and have a proprietary lease on their unit. They are for all intents and purposes tenants and fall under landlord-tenant law. On the other hand, a condominium is real estate. And while the circumstances may be different, there are ways for a condominium associa- tion to evict--or rather eject--an owner. We look at the circumstances and process of how someone could be removed from a condo. Ejecting an Owner The case of the Heywood Condominium in New York City’s Chelsea neighbor- hood illustrates the process. The condominium successfully ejected a former unit owner who had failed to pay his common charges for several years. “When an association is owed back common charges, they can file a lien against the unit and the unit owner and begin a foreclosure action,” says attorney Mark Hakim of the Manhattan firm Schwartz Sladkus Reich Greenberg Atlas, which rep- resented the condominium. “During the foreclosure action, the association can re- quest that the court appoint a receiver to collect rent from the unit. That rent will be at market rate for the unit, generally a much higher dollar amount than the common charges. “If the owner is still occupying the unit and refuses to pay the rent ordered by the receiver,” Hakim continues, “an action for ejection can be brought and the in- foreclosure owner/occupant can be removed for non-compliance with the receiver’s order.” Cooperator.com From W as your building’s elevator installed before 2009? If so, it will probably re- quire the installation of a door monitoring lock in order to be in compli- ance with a new regulation passed by the City. New York City adopted the new rule to provide door lock monitoring to all resi- dential buildings with automatic elevators following a series of elevator door-related deaths and injuries. This work must be completed by January 1, 2020—which is right around the corner—and it’s forcing local elevator companies to work around the clock to meet that deadline. Background The regulation is in compliance with recommendations made by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) back in 2002. During the period when the policy was under consideration and being adopted, the New York City Fire Depart- ment (FDNY) reviewed the proposal and had concerns about how it might affect fire- fighting. As a result, the plan was revised to include a fire service bypass to allay the department’s concerns. Aside from considering when your elevator was installed (newer elevators installed around or after 2009 most likely feature a circuit that stops the elevator when the door contacts are open, said elevator consulting company ElevatorLab on its blog), control- lers put into place before 1996 or with microprocessors more than 18 years old will almost certainly require an upgrade. Like any change to a New York City elevator, a permit is required for this work. Additionally, the work will need to be signed off by an engineer, architect or the controller manufacturer. These requirements are in effect to protect residents and ensure proper installation of the monitoring systems. How Are Elevator Companies Responding? According to Joseph Corrado, Executive Vice President of Champion Elevator Corp., in New York City, the new regulation is “creating something of a backlog” for el- evator firms. Not that he’s complaining. Elevator companies, he explains, tend to have several departments that handle specific types of work. Typically, these departments include maintenance, repair, modernization, violations, and construction. Corrado’s firm has created a new department for door lock monitoring. “Prior to the enactment of this regulation we rarely had requests for \[monitoring technology\]. People do that work which is mandated.” Kenneth Breglio, President of BP Elevator in the Bronx, concurs. “To a small degree there has been a staffing problem,” he says. “We’re a decent-sized company with 150 employees, so we can maneuver, but it has put stress on the operation. We are working Saturdays and Sundays to try to meet the demand.” Breglio explains that building owners, including co-op and condo boards, are usu- Visit Cooperator.com for related news, articles and videos. Companies Are Trying to Meet Elevator Safety Deadline by 2020 New Regulation Calls for Door Lock Monitoring in Elevators BY AJ SIDRANSKY F or a fleeting moment, it appeared as if Jeff Bezos had emptied his proverbial shopping cart and left New York behind after the fallout from the Amazon HQ 2 reversal. But it now seems like the famed billionaire and CEO of the retailing giant couldn’t stay away from the Big Apple. In June, Bezos reportedly purchased three adjacent condo units at 212 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan for a total of nearly $80 million. According to Bloomberg , Bezos is worth $108.3 billion. His supposed new digs consist of a 10,000-square foot penthouse and two units below it – which was jointly developed by Madison Equities and Thor Equities – for a combined 17,000 square feet. The penthouse alone offers five bedrooms, five bath- rooms and 6,000 square feet of outdoor space, with the other two units providing another seven bedrooms between them. Amenities at 212 Fifth Avenue include a fitness center, golf simulator, screening room, boardroom, and catering kitchen. According to developers, all the units in the building are now sold. Dashing any hopes that this deal might signify an uptick in the luxury market, Donna Olshan, President of brokerage at Olshan Realty Inc., told Bloomberg that “the only thing \[the transaction\] says is that this is what the richest guy in the world wanted to buy today.” And the Bezos business doesn’t end there. Late last month, the New York Post re- ported that Amazon is eyeing commercial space at One Manhattan West and the still- under-construction Two Manhattan West, both a stone’s throw from Penn Station. A source told the paper Amazon is looking for “at least 100,000 square feet or much more.” Report: Amazon’s Bezos Buys NYC Condos for $80M Tech Tycoon Reportedly Purchases Three Manhattan Apartments BY MIKE ODENTHAL When It’s Time to Evict an Owner or Tenant From a Condo There Are Some Factors Involved BY AJ SIDRANSKY continued on page 16 continued on page 16 continued on page 16