In: Long Island Property Management

In NYC Cooperative buildings (or in all locations, really) adding someone to a stock certificate may seem like something that should be easily approved, but it is often a lengthy process.

The Cooperative Board of Directors is charged with protecting the interests of all of the Shareholders in the buildings, so when someone is being attached to the shares of a particular apartment, it is their fiduciary responsibility to ensure that this person will be able to financially afford to pay for the monthly maintenance, along with all other debts in their lives.

Even if this person has been living with the Shareholder for a lengthy period of time, most Boards will consider this transaction similar to a new purchase of an apartment and will ask for detailed reports on the financial activity of the new person applying.

These processes can also be costly. There are costs for application processing, Board review and then ultimately, the closing of a new stock certificate and proprietary lease.

Sometimes a Board of Directors in a Cooperative can overstep their bounds. Whether it’s from a lack of knowledge of what they can or can’t do or just a lax outlook on adhering to the building’s documents, Boards need to keep their limits in mind when making changes.

Recently, someone posed the question to the Habitat Magazine (http://www.habitatmag.com) forums asking if the Board can change the terms of the Proprietary Lease, to allow for Shareholders to now be responsible for the upkeep and replacement of windows. This was, according to the poster, done without the approval of the Shareholders at large.

The Proprietary Lease usually calls for a supermajority of Shareholders (either 66.6% or 75%, depending on the documents) to approve any changes to the Proprietary Lease or Bylaws. If there wasn’t a special meeting for this purpose or if it was not included on the agenda of the Annual Meeting, then the Board most likely made this change illegally.

We always advise our Boards to follow the law with regards to handling building documents to ensure that the rules and policies set forth are enforceable to the end.

From time to time a Unit Owner or a Shareholder will place an illegal sublet into their unit without the prior written authorization of the Board of Managers or the Board of Directors in that particular building. One Board Member had inquired if they could take it upon themselves to remove the sublet directly or if they needed to go to bat with the Shareholder in question, first.

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Certificates of Insurance are one of the most important aspects of information that we can collect from any vendor that is working in a building. Whether they’re hired by the building, a unit owner / shareholder or by a subtenant, all companies that enter into any of our buildings are required to first show proof of insurance.

At the very bottom of this post we have included a pro-forma Certificate of Insurance Requirements that we use within many of our buildings. This includes the standard amounts of insurance that our portfolio of buildings require. They include General Liability, Workmen’s Comp and Auto policies. Each time we collect a certificate we always note that the management company (Excel Bradshaw Management Group, LLC) and the entity that owns the building be named as Additional Insured and as Certificate Holders. This is to protect the building and the managing agent from any damage to the common area, damage to personal spaces and injury to workmen, residents and visitors.

There are a variety of times that the Certificate of Insurance will be required. Those times range from building wide work, personal alterations and decorations to move-ins and move-outs. Lock down those insurance certificates and not only will the management and Board be protected, but so will the assets of all of those unit owners and shareholders.

Pro-Forma Certificate Requirements: Click Here

Bed Bugs are a very scary element in any building. Not only can the wreak havoc on the resident that will be most affected by it, but left untreated they can drain a building’s operating account faster than almost anything else.

We always implore all residents in every building to immediately notify Management if they think that they may have a bed bug issue in their unit. We’ll immediately arrange for an inspection of the premises by a trained professional (canine inspection or visual inspection).

If there is a positive for an infestation, we’ll make sure to start the inspection process in all units that are above, below and on either side of the positive unit to try and note where the problem has spread to and to stop the spread with proper treatment.

If the resident is in a Cooperative or a rental building, the “landlord” should be footing the bill for the treatment while the resident is responsible for the costs to prep their apartment (dry cleaning, laundering, cleaning, etc.) The one way to force the tenant to pay for the bed bugs treatment is to pin down that particular unit as the only unit infected in the building (and talk to an attorney about this before you go to charge).

Residents that test positive should never throw away their untreated belongings in the building trash, drag furniture or uncovered mattresses through the building or in any other way increase the chance that the bed bugs will spread. Mattresses that are left on the curb for pickup after treatment (or any time) must be properly covered or the building will receive a fine (in NYC).

The apartment will need to be completely prepped prior to treatment because an apartment that is not fully prepped stands a better chance of not being fully exterminated. The exterminators will use a variety of treatments which include steaming, freezing and dusting, so there are many different treatment options that will be utilized.

Getting on top of this problem from the very first sign will help any building weather through the bed bug storm. Bed bugs can live up to a year without food, so knowing that they’re potentially within the common elements of the building and have the ability to travel should make every building prepare for the worst and have a bed bug plan in place.

Downloadable Bed Bug Disclosure Form: Click Here

Downloadable Bed Bug Prep Sheet: Click Here

Downloadable NYC Bed Bug Pamphlet: Click Here

A lot of building owners and Boards have one thing in common; they’re often-times getting involved in the minutiae that they hire their property management professionals to handle. Whether it’s giving the staff direction on the day-to-day or getting directly involved in tenant affairs, there is potential for a large amount of confusion and misdirection for any and all building staff.

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We see this all the time in property management; a resident refusing to give a copy of their apartment key to their landlord or to the building staff in the case of an emergency. In New York, it’s part of the law that the tenant should give a copy of their key to the landlord and in Proprietary Leases for Cooperatives, it notes that the Lessee (shareholder) shall give a copy of their key to the Lessor (Coop Board or representative).

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In Property Management there are always residents that are looking to do work inside their apartments; whether that work is invasive and structural or purely cosmetic in nature.

Excel Bradshaw Management Group, LLC has two distinct forms for buildings to consider when residents are performing work. We have a decoration application, which deals with mostly cosmetic repairs and we have an alteration application, which goes into more detail and usually involves all plumbing, electrical and structural work on the interior.

Both applications will require that the company performing the work supply any and all licenses and insurance as may be required. All permits for the work that need to be filed and received from the City also need to be displayed. The resident doing the work will also have to show proof of homeowners or renters insurance to assure the building of coverage in the case of an accident, etc.

If the work is structural in nature, the resident must provide their architects sealed renderings and the building will utilize those to have the building’s architect review, at resident’s expense.

We’re all about locking down the information and providing as much protection to the building as possible. Collecting all of the important and relevant information from the contractors and from the residents prior to the work being approved will go a long way in protecting the building and all residents from unauthorized, or illegal work.

Sample Decoration Agreement

Sample Alteration Agreement

This question and answer came from the forums on Habitat Magazine (http://www.habitatmag.com). The question was pertaining to a Shareholder who had taken on a roommate and wanted to know that if they left the roommate in the apartment without the Shareholder being present, can this be considered a sublet, even if the Cooperative Corporation doesn’t have a “sublet policy” in place.

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A Shareholder in a recent correspondence noted to Management that the shares attributed to their unit were too many in the Schedule A of the Offering Plan. Apartments that were attributed garage spaces had an extra 50 shares built into their proprietary lease and stock certificates, but this is the one apartment that had the extra shares in the unit but no garage to attribute the shares to.

Roughly 30-years after the building went Cooperative, this was noticed by the Shareholder. At the time of the purchase of the original shares from the Sponsor, an attorney looking into the building’s Offering Plan and supporting documents would have picked up on this discrepancy with a bit of due diligence. The Shareholder, having paid maintenance for a period of 30 years was only now looking into the perceived extra maintenance that they have been paying. There is no way, now, to adjust the shares in the Schedule A as that would change the entire layout of shares within the Cooperative as a whole.

With a bit of due diligence and paying attention to the details while purchasing the apartment, this mistake could have been avoided. They would not have been able to change the Schedule A but they would have been able to step away from the purchase in the first place, before the financial damage was done.