The New York Co-Op – A New Yorker’s Home Isn’t A Castle – and Not Even Real Estate

Posted on January 22, 2010

One of the most English of idioms, is An Englishmans Home is His Castle.

It doesnt apply to Englishmen who live in co-ops in Manhattan.

When I arrived in New York a couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to find a room for rent in a privately owned apartment in Manhattan.

It was an apartment in a co-op. In England, and everywhere else in the world, co-op refers to a jointly owned enterprise that is involved in the production of goods for the benefit of its owners. In New York, where we have our own language, it means something entirely different.

Between conversations with my landlord and house-mate and my subsequent experience as a licensed New York real estate agent, Ive learned enough to realize that buying a co-op is not right for everyone. Thats British understatement. To some people not brought up in New York, buying a co-op is an invitation to be violated.

First of all, if you buy an apartment in a co-op, you dont own any real estate since you wont own an apartment at all. Rather, you own shares in a small company. The company is typically formed only to own and maintain the building. Shares are not real estate. They are personal property, whose value depends, obviously, on the running of the company, and therefore to the decisions of the members of the Co-op Board. Directing a co-op is hardly the epitome of glamour, but whatever the motivation of people who seek election to their boards, it affects the value of what is likely to be the largest asset of each person who lives in the building. Your home is not so much your castle as theirs.

But this issue of ownership is a mere technicality next to the greatest reason why the idiomatic Englishman, and no doubt many self-respecting Americans, would not buy a New York co-op.

The potential purchaser of an apartment in a co-op must apply to buy (!?). The application is an intrusive process in which the co-op board demands the most intimate information about the lives and finances of would-be buyers. They can demand tax returns, references from anyone, the pedigree of every cent of the buyers net worth, and even how they spend money. They can ask about the social habits of the buyer and the buyers partner, together or separately, to determine if you they are the kind of people who should be allowed to live with them. There is nothing that practically prevents them from exercising their own personal prejudices, and if they decide someone does not fit their preferred profile, they dont have to explain why not.

Since the company controls the building, and the owners do not except through the Board, the Board makes the rules about what co-op owners can do their homes. If the Board decides one day that their building, which formerly allowed dogs, now does not, you have to say goodbye to Rover or incur the expense of moving, since as a shareholder, you have no right of veto. (Of course, if you opt for the latter, you may have to pay a special fee also imposed by the Board, to help fill the coffers.)

And if the Board decides that you can no longer have two guests over for more than a week without permission, then you might be canceling your old classmates trip from New Zealand.

But its the Maintenance charges that serve as the monthly reminder that youre not in control. These charges are often as much as the mortgage (which isnt really a mortgage of course, since its not secured on property!). These, too, are set by the Board. Shareholders may cast a vote at the end of the year to eject a board that has increased the maintenance by an unreasonable amount, but then, what will they do to make the payments that are required to repair the damage or meet the undue expenses that resulted from the bad decisions made by the very Board that is to be ejected?

The obvious question is begged: why would anyone pay all this money (average price $1.22M, price per sq foot $998) to have their privacy invaded and then be told what they can do in their own home?

The answer is very simple. For those who know New York City, almost all apartments in Manhattan below 96th St are co-operatives, and 96th St has for years divided the desirable Upper West Side to its south from the undesirable Harlem to its north. And so it used to be that if you wanted a home in a livable part of Manhattan, the choice was between a co-op and a cardboard-box.

But times, they are a-changing. 125th St is the new 96th St. And most of the new building between the two is of condos, which exist everywhere else in America and are real estate. You can move into a condo without anyones pouring over your past, and you can live in a condo without anyones telling you, or Rover, what to do,

Author: Robin Koerner
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable Multi-cooker

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