Category: Q&A

Q. I live in a prewar co-op building. It takes 5-10 minutes for the cold water in my kitchen and bathroom to get truly cold. It starts out warm or lukewarm (75-82 degrees Fahrenheit) when I first turn it on, and it’s very frustrating. The…

Q. In addition to our monthly $942 common charges, the board of our condominium complex has been collecting an additional $257 assessment each month since August 2018 in anticipation of future repair work, and to replenish our underfunded…

Q. I’m trying to get my wife’s name added to my proprietary lease of my co-op. The manager is saying that it’ll cost me $600 to do so (!) and an additional fee of $150 to have an affidavit signed for a lost stock certificate. (Note: my ba…

Q. Can a co-op charge the shareholder a fee if they have guests for long periods of time? Can we ask for photo IDs?                                     —Reluctant Host A. “A ‘long period of time’ may be shorter than you think,” says a…

Q. We have a president of our co-op board that has been president for almost 30 years because he collects proxies from the shareholders who will not attend the yearly meeting and uses them to either reelect himself or others that side wit…

Q. A co-op owner purchased her unit in 2005 and has been subleasing it to the same tenant since 2011. The co-op board recently passed an amendment to the bylaws that states an owner cannot sublease a unit for more than two years, and it a…

Q. This question is for my neighbor. We own shares in a co-op in Long Island. She has had extensive water damage and now has mold in her unit. She emails the property manager and president of board to no avail. It’s been like this for mon…

Q. A homeowner in a condo asks the board to allow the alteration of the balcony enclosure to a taller height. The board and management company agree and the alteration takes place. Twenty-five years later, a new manager says that was impr…

Q. I live in a condominium that consists of seven individual buildings all three- to four-family that is co-joined by another condominium on the same block. We are sharing a private sewer line with one connection out to the city sewer; th…

Q. I live on a second floor of a co-op condo. We would like to replace the current front windows with impact windows. The current old windows have a metal criss-cross ‘cathedral’ type design, and we would like to eliminate it. It looks ol…