Monthly Archives: July 2021

This was originally posted on the SGR Blog.

Residential coop living comes with adjacent neighbors and the concomitant sounds of nearby use and occupancy. But how much “noise” is too much “noise” so as to amount to an actionable “nuisance”. As a recent case illustrates, every “noise” may not rise to the level of legally cognizable “nuisance”.

Richard L. Getty, a musician and the lessee of a cooperative apartment, brought a Small Claims action against Mike Tolentino and Laura Tolentino, the owners of a vertically adjoining cooperative apartment based upon loud music being played. Getty claimed the Tolentinos played loud music that constituted a nuisance and interfered with his ability to profit from an Airbnb deal.

This was originally published on the SGR Blog.

How much litigation is too much litigation? In a recent case, the Board of a residential coop asked the Court to find that a shareholder/tenant and her husband had overstepped permissible bounds in repeatedly bringing suits claimed to be frivolous and vexatious.

800 Grand Concourse Owners, Inc. sued to evict Charlene Thomson, the shareholder and proprietary lessee of Apartment 4L-N, and James Pettus, her husband who also lived in the apartment. The Board terminated the lease for “objectionable conduct”— including the filing of at least a dozen frivolous civil cases against the coop. The suits forced the coop to incur unnecessary and excessive attorneys’ fees, court costs, and the loss of insurance coverage. At least one court declared Thomson and Pettus to be “vexatious litigants” and prohibited the filing of further suits without judicial permission.

This was originally posted on the SGR Blog.

Was the Request Reasonable? And Serving a Legitimate Corporate Purpose?

Unit owners at residential coops have both statutory and common law right rights to inspect corporate books and records. But, as a recent case illustrates, that right is not without limits. And that right may be abrogated where the demand is improperly motivated, on the one hand, and/or otherwise unreasonable, on the other.

James E. Cayne sought to compel 510 Park Avenue Corporation, a residential cooperative, to comply with his demand to inspect the coop’s books and records pursuant to New York Business Corporation Law § 624 and the common law of the State of New York.