Lewis Kuper is Chair of Tarter Krinsky & Drogin’s Cooperatives & Condominiums Practice and a Partner in the firm’s Real Estate Practice.

Lew has extensive experience representing sellers, purchasers, landlords, tenants, lenders, and borrowers in all aspects of commercial and residential real estate. His expertise includes the purchase and sale of apartment and office buildings, hotels, and shopping centers; retail, office, big box, and net leases; and financings, including leasehold mortgages and mezzanine financing. He also handles high end residential property transactions; joint venture and operating agreements; and real estate syndication offerings.

Throughout his career, Lew has specialized in cooperative, condominium and New York State Department of Law matters. He has prepared and submitted more than 75 condominium and cooperative offering plans to the Attorney General’s office, including new construction luxury condominium projects, rental conversions, affordable housing projects, new construction cooperatives and time share offerings. His practice also includes obtaining no filing letters for real estate investment vehicles and obtaining Attorney General approval for user group acquisitions of multi family buildings.  In recent years, he has represented developers, educational institutions, hospitals, social service agencies and charities in facilitating real estate tax exemptions by structuring and creating leasehold condominium regimes.

In addition to his expertise representing sponsors, Lew also represents and advises numerous co-op and condo boards on a wide variety of matters including the following: corporate governance; proprietary lease and by-law amendments; condominium declaration amendments; construction access agreements; mortgage refinances; maintenance and common charge non payment matters; unit owner disputes; property damage claims; third party vendor agreements; and transfer agent matters.  Working with our litigation department, Lew also handles complex litigation matters affecting co-op and condo boards.

Among the major transactions Lew has handled during his career are the following:

• Sale of an independent hotel, including arranging the settlement of all outstanding labor union issues
• Obtaining a no-action letter to create a 2-unit leasehold condominium, consisting of a residential and commercial component, and filing a new construction cooperative offering plan with respect to the multi-family residential unit
• The closing of the sale of all the units in a 28-unit gut renovated condominium building in 1 day
• Obtained from HPD a complete exemption of the 3% Reserve Fund requirement for a rental property being converted to a condominium that underwent extensive renovations