Laws regarding how a co-op building is run (Accord: sale, real estate)

[hancox17]

Looked around and couldn't find an answer to my question. Actually not sure if there is an answer but here goes anyway.

We rent in a building that is, according to DHCR, a co-op building. However, we never interviewed with a board--no one does--the broker that rented to us said it wasn't a co-op, and to my knowledge, there is no board. It also certainly is not like other co-op buildings I lived in.

So my question is this--if a building is considered to be a co-op by the city, are there rules/regulations that have to be followed for them to retain that status? I realize a lot of buildings went co-op to get around rent regulations but can they be "demoted" if they aren't actually a co-op any more?

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

[nightcrawler]

In our building it is now co-op, but the tenants that are RS and RC can still live there, but once they move out the apartment, the unit become the ownership of the sponsor, which is the LL. the apartment at that point no longer is under the rules of RS & RC, which is what the sponsor wants, thus making all these buildings co op back in the 80's.

We have 32 apartments and there are only 2 RS tenants left, the rest either own, like myself and the unsold apartments are being rented out at whaterver the LL wants to charge. The LL no longer has RS RC rules to follow, with regards to paining, repairs and the like.


Once a building is co-op, it does not revert to back to what it was.

[bluedog2]

DHCR co ops are very different from the more "normal" co ops.They can also be incredibly corrupt.Many were formed because landlords abandoned the buildings or because the landlords were so bad that the city took over control of the property.

Sometimes corrupt DHCR co op boards use the buildings as cash cows to support themselves.They take apartments that are supposed to have rental and sale price restrictions and income restrictions on them and rent them out at market rates and pocket the excess.Most of them aren't even supposed to rent to non owners.They do just the kind of thing you have described here.They work hand in hand with corrupt real estate brokers and operate the buildings as personal piggy banks.

There are a lot of decent,legally run DHCR co ops and many have served to stabilize buildings and neighborhoods but there are also a lot of very bad ones.Sounds like the building you live in might be one of the bad ones.

You can do a search on ACRIS and see every legal and financial detail of your building.That should give you a clue.

http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/CoverPage.dll/lookup

Put in the address,hit find BBL. when the next page comes up hit "document search by bbl" then on the next page hit "search"........bingo,the building history is before you.Clicking on "image" will bring up the entire document for any entry.

[hancox17]

Wow--that site is amazing--thanks! According to them, we are now a condo, although all the apartments are "unsold". Interesting. Not sure what I can do with this information, but thanks very much for the information.

[Kefir King]

bluedog,
Not to put words in your mouth but are you thinking of HDFC co-ops?

hancox,
A common scenario is that a landlord takes his building co-op in a non eviction plan requiring only 15% of the tenants to agree to purchase. The landlord/sponsor can own the other 85% of the apartments and operate as if the place was a normal rental. He controls all actions of the board and new tenants may be completely unaware of the actual status of the building.
In reality there is some diminishing of tenant's rights, although on paper it is not supposed to happen.
Some landlords are eager to sell units, others seem to want to hold onto them forever.
I'd hate to get involved unless I was an old pre-conversion tenant at a low stabilized or controlled rent. The situation can be chaotical because of conflicting interests: buyers have one set of interests, long term tenants another, short term tenants a third, and the sponsor a fourth.

Example: A friend was tossed from her rent-controlled apartment at 38th and Park after 40 years...landlord wanted the place "for his relatives." After panic settled down she found a sponsor apartment in Queens and went through the magilla of moving a near lifetime of stuff. At lease time a year later she was told "either buy or move"...back to nervous breakdown time. She bought and luckily she timed the market perfectly, by accident and got an incredible deal becasue the bank was breathing down the neck of the sponsor. But you can see what I mean by chaos.