Q: I believe I am facing retaliation from the board of my Manhattan co-op. In 2018, the building manager was supposed to correct an error with my account, but she never removed the baseless late charges, and has since added more. Management has used some of my maintenance payments to pay these late charges, rather than applying them to my monthly costs. I ran for a co-op board seat, but within days got “notices to cure” all the way to “eviction,” based on these erroneous charges. The board did not file their papers correctly the first time, but they have filed them again in housing court. What do I do next?
A: You should respond to the notices to cure in a timely fashion, and contest the debt, following the procedure outlined in your co-op’s governing documents. Include proof of the account error as well as any relevant communications you’ve had with the board or your building’s managing agent.
If you cannot prove that you told the co-op to apply your monthly payments to your regular maintenance fees rather than these other charges, you may not be able to challenge how the co-op’s billing staff allocated the funds, said Leni Morrison Cummins, chair of the condominiums and cooperatives practice at Cozen O’Connor. If you do have documentation showing that you wanted your payments to be applied to your monthly charges, include that evidence when you respond to the board.
If the financial dispute gets to court, the burden of proof will be on the co-op to show that it is properly charging you, Ms. Cummins said. You’ll have an opportunity to respond to the co-op’s claims and provide evidence of the errors. If you are victorious, the co-op could be required to pay your legal fees. If not, you may have to pay building’s legal fees.
“Before this escalates to litigation, both you and the co-op will need to thoroughly review your records to confirm the strength of each position,” Ms. Cummins said.
You may be correct that the board is retaliating against you, but proving it could be difficult. What kind of evidence do you have? Are you aware that other shareholders in a similar situation were treated differently?
“It is possible that the timing of the cooperative’s legal action, coinciding with the shareholder’s candidacy for the board, is coincidental,” said Joseph Colbert, a real estate lawyer at Colbert Law, LLC.
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