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Thanks everyone for your input. Totally appreciated.
Esacni - it's in Jackson Heights, Queens. I actually love the neighborhood, just hate my neighbors, co-op board, and management company.
90sSitcom - the door is still on the hinges and it can be opened, with a good amount of force. The deadbolt is pretty messed up. If you try to use it to lock the door, it makes it REALLY hard to unlock. My partner accidentally locked it and it took him 20 minutes to unlock/unstick the door... It takes even more force than what's needed to open it. Not a good look for an apartment being sold.
BBMW - I get the sense that withholding maintenance without any kind of legal safety net (or a ton of $$$) will backfire, based on how poorly management has handled previous noise complaints. They said it's MY fault that the downstairs neighbor's music was too loud, so.
nightcrawler - thanks, fixing the door myself is probably the best way to put this all behind me... but management may not let me replace the door on my own, or more likely, they'll take months to approve it, make me pay some sort of deposit on top of everything, and then not reimburse me. They are greedy idiots like most management companies. I suppose I might as well ask them if that's possible though. Stay tuned?
OP, you need to talk to your Board and have them light some fire (no pun intended) under management's butts. It is not in the financial interest of the co-op to delay a sale simply because of a malfunctioning front door. The Shareholders are the reason the management company is getting a paycheck.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
My husband had to replace his mother's coop door and it took FOREVER. More than six months, that's for sure. But we still sold the apartment and the buyers were told the door would be replaced. Obviously no one was paying maintenance on the apartment for over a year (she was deceased) and it didn't "rush" things along.
My sister was replacing the doors in her house and she had to wait five months because they were backordered. It's possible that they are actually backordered, and they don't know what else to tell you.
This is so terribly sad, partly because my impression is that you didn't handle things well. If you had collected neighbors to join your battle, kept a log, and complained in writing, that might have gotten your problem solved.
I can't tell you whether you can sue. Well, technically anyone "can" sue. The question is whether there is any point to it. Can you sue over their refusing to give you a timetable for the door? I doubt it, and it seems like a minor problem. But even now, I'm not sure whether you've tried pinning them down in writing, and asking for speciifics. That might help. However, since this is potentially a safety issue, you can try siccing the government on them. What about the good ol' "warrant of habitability"? I wonder whether, if you can show that they are making it unsafe and unlivable, they should put in a temporary door and refund the months of maintenance.
Bood luck. Sorry that it worked out so badly for you.
A temporary door, regardless of mismatch seems like a reasonable request and then you won't give a tinker's damn HOW long it takes for them to improve the looks of the place with a matching door.
Sue the co-op board members in small claims court. You won't need a process server (can just send in via mail) and in NYC your claim is good up to $10k. They will likely not make an appearance and you can claim a default judgment. The statutory interest in NY is 8% which you can use to apply against their bank account or even business license - which can be suspended if they do not pay.
Wow, thank you all. I did not expect everyone to be so helpful.
Just to follow up - I haven't reached out to the management company yet about fixing the door myself. Before management started ignoring my emails completely, the assistant manager was CCing the building super about the doors, as the super was the one saying the doors were backordered.
Today, my partner texted the super about the doors. The super responded saying he is "not really sure" if management has ordered them yet. But, in all the past emails, management was making it seem like it's the super's job to place the order.
I can't tell if they are all playing some sort of game, or if they are the dumbest and most irresponsible building management company in NYC.
At least I have all of this in writing - it does show a stupendous amount of ineptitude.
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