Tarter Krinsky & Drogin is pleased to announce the promotion of the below three counsels to partner and the promotion of five associates to counsel.

Cooperative and Condominium counsel Chris Tumulty was featured in a Habitat Magazine interview in which he discusses alteration agreements in self-managed buildings.

When asked about the challenges of self-managed buildings, Chris highlights, “in a self-managed buildings, it’s the board’s responsibility to make sure alterations are done properly, safely, and in conformance with any requirement the building may have.”

Cooperative and Condominium chair Steve Troup and counsel Chris Tumulty recently won a significant victory for a cooperative apartment board client in New York Supreme Court involving both co-op governance and construction law issues. We were retained by the co-op to address a dangerous condition on its roof, which was created by the penthouse owners’ illegal alterations over many years to their apartment and the rooftop above.

Cooperative and Condominium counsel Chris Tumulty was recently named to the New York City Bar Association’s 2019 Cooperative & Condominium Law Committee, which addresses issues pertaining to cooperative and condominium housing law in a variety of areas, including changes in the policies of lenders with respect to loans and underlying mortgages, co-op and condo discrimination, accommodations between boards and apartment owners and recent New York State and New York City legislature.

Litigation associate Jonathan Temchin recently participated in Habitat magazine’s Legal Game Changers for Boards video series where professionals in key fields of co-op and condo board governance and building management answer common questions in their areas of expertise.

Thirty lawyers from Tarter Krinsky & Drogin have been named to the 2018 New York Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists as top lawyers in New York. The annual Super Lawyers list recognizes the top five percent of lawyers in New York for their professional achievements. Lawyers are selected through a process that includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.

Cooperative and Condominium practice chair Steve Troup participated in a Q&A in The Cooperator where a tenant asked whether the president of a co-op board is allowed to collect proxies from other residents. Steve explains, “So long as there is no misrepresentation or intimidation, there’s nothing illegal about what the reader is complaining about. Anyone can do what she is doing.” Steve has been a frequent contributor to The Cooperator, a leading industry publication in the co-op and condo industry.

Cooperative and Condominium partner Steve Troup was quoted in the article, “The Limits of Board Powers” by The Cooperator. The article explored what board members of co-op and condo boards can and cannot do to ensure that the individual and collective actions of a board meet all legal and ethical requirements.

This year, 28 lawyers from Tarter Krinsky & Drogin have been named to the 2017 New York Super Lawyers and Rising Stars lists as top lawyers in the state. The annual Super Lawyers list recognizes the top five percent of lawyers in New York for their professional achievements. Attorneys are selected through a process that includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.

Four Tarter Krinsky & Drogin attorneys were ranked on the Rising Stars list, which recognizes the top 2.5 percent of lawyers who either are under the age of 40 or have been in practice for 10 years or less.

Cooperative and Condominium practice chair Steve Troup was quoted in The Cooperator article, “Making Special Assessments Work: Fixed Incomes, Low Incomes & Hard Times.”

Cooperative and Condominium practice chair Steve Troup was quoted in The Cooperator article, "Soundclash: When Residential Condos and Commercial Tenants Can’t Hear Ear-to-Ear." Steve points out that courts generally hesitate to evict commercial tenants over residents’ noise complaints, but prefer instead to use mediation for dispute resolution.

Cooperative and Condominium chair and partner Steve Troup was featured in a Q&A in The Cooperator where a tenant asked whether a shareholder, who is not a licensed and insured contractor, to perform gutter and minor roof repairs.

Real Estate Weekly featured the recent promotions of Gina Piazza and Christopher Tumulty in its Deals and Dealmakers section.

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin recently announced the promotions of three lawyers, David Kleinmann and Gina Piazza to partner, and Chris Tumulty to counsel.

Steve Troup was selected by the Cooperative & Condominium Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association as a member of the Contract Revision Subcommittee, which is charged with revising the standard form of purchase and sale agreement for co-op apartments in New York.

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin is pleased to announce the promotions of three lawyers, two to partner and one to counsel.

Cooperative and Condominium Practice chair Steve Troup was recently featured in a Cooperator New York article on evaluating prospective buyers’ finances when purchasing a co-op apartment.

Construction Group partner Laurie Stanziale and Cooperative and Condominium chair Steve Troup published an article for Law360 on “What to Know About Licensing Agreements With Neighbors.”

An article by Cooperative and Condominium chair Steve Troup on the importance of putting modern alteration agreements into place when any serious construction is occurring in a co-op was featured in Habitat magazine.

Steve Troup was quoted in “When Residents Are Disruptive” published by The Cooperator.

Partner Steve Troup was quoted in the June 2014 issue of The Cooperator. The article “What You’re Getting Into – Vetting Contracts Before You Sign” addresses issues that board members and managers should consider when signing contracts on behalf of co-op and condo associations. 

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin represented Hackermeter, a coding challenge website, in the negotiation and closing of an acquisition with Pinterest. The start-up was launched at Y Combinator’s Demo Day in August and matched developers with companies through code challenges.

Steven Troup was featured in the Q&A section of the Cooperator’s July 2013 issue. The article, titled “Unfairly Charged” addresses the question of how a co-op homeowner should handle a dispute with management about unfair expenses incurred.

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin successfully negotiated and closed an $18.1 million mortgage financing transaction for a cooperative client.

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin Partner Steven Troup recently won favorable decisions in court hearings for two condominium clients.

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin recently closed a complex underlying mortgage refinancing for a 164-unit Upper East Side co-op with National Cooperative Bank.

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin recently closed an unusual transaction on behalf of a co-op client consisting of 30 apartments owned by investors, occupied by rent-stabilized tenants, which were sold to another investor group. 

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin represented client 88 Laight Street, LLC to close $2 million in additional financing to complete the The Glass Condominium project.

A change in state law that takes effect this month now requires New York residential landlords to distribute disability accommodation notices to all current tenants by April 1, 2021, and to all new tenants within 30 days of beginning their tenancy.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the Act) signed by the President on December 27, 2020, includes a second round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). It also contains an important provision specifically including “housing cooperatives” as eligible applicants for PPP funding.

As we start a new year, we would like to share with you some of our most popular legal alerts from 2019. Our top-read alerts range from construction, labor & employment, tax, immigration, trusts & estates, cooperatives & condominiums, real estate, corporate & securities, litigation and intellectual property, reflecting the broad array of our full-service practice. We hope that our alerts have been valuable to you and your colleagues, and demonstrate our commitment to providing helpful information to you.

As we head into summer, we would like to share with you some of our most popular legal alerts from the first half of 2019. Our top-read alerts range from construction, labor and employment, tax, corporate and securities, immigration, cooperatives and condominiums, commercial leasing, real estate, litigation and intellectual property, reflecting the broad array of our full-service practice. We hope that our alerts have been valuable to you and your colleagues, and demonstrate our commitment to providing helpful information to you.

Late last year, the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department issued a decision regarding the enforceability of an attorneys’ fees provision in a Manhattan cooperative’s proprietary lease. In its decision in Krodel v. Amalgamated Dwellings Inc., the Appellate Division found that the attorneys’ fees provision was unenforceable to the extent that it allowed the co-op to recover attorneys’ fees from a tenant if the tenant commenced an action against the co-op, regardless of whether the co-op was or was not in default.

Steve Troup authored the article, “When Owners Want a Peek Behind the Curtain… Make Sure Nothing Scandalous Gets Out” for Habitat magazine. In the article, Steve explained that there are documents that must be turned over to shareholders or unit-owners of co-ops or condos if requested in good faith.

The job of a co-op or condo board member seems pretty straightforward: have  meetings, take votes on this or that item of business, approve checks, keep an  eye on the budget, and so forth.  That’s the administrative part of the job. But board membership also comes with a  whole slew of legal and ethical considerations as well—many of which the board member may have never stopped to consider. Let’s take a look at some of the common ethical and legal pratfalls board members  fall victim to, and how to avoid them.   

Q We own a three-family house in Brooklyn that is part of a 140-building homeowners’ association. We have not had an annual meeting for more than five years. Two months ago, we asked the board for a special meeting as outlined in the bylaws, but we have not received a response. What can we do now?

Q. I live in a condominium community in Queens. I recently wrote to the board of managers and asked whether I, as a homeowner, have the right to attend monthly board meetings. I was told that no homeowner (other than a board member) may, under any circumstances, attend a meeting of the board. Is this correct? Is there a law in New York that prohibits homeowners from attending monthly board meetings? ... George P. Silberman, Bayside, Queens.

There is a general uncertainty within the real estate community with respect to the requirements for conveying clear title to individually owned condominium and cooperative apartments when one or all of the record owners are deceased. This article will discuss what a seller's attorney must do prior to closing to assure that the seller can deliver on his or her obligation to convey clear title at closing, as well as to satisfy the title agent and the managing agent of a cooperative corporation, that all of the necessary documents are in place in order to effectuate a transfer of good and clear title of the unit.

When shareholders of a cooperative or unit-owners of a condominium vote to elect members of a board, balloting may be done in secret or in the open. Secret ballots, as the term implies, are private. In open balloting, both the fact of voting and the person for whom the ballot is cast are public knowledge.