Question re ownership history of coop apartment

Pre mid-05, ACRIS only recorded transactions that involved a UCC-1 filing (for co-ops).

SE and the other sites get their data from ACRIS, so not much you can find there.

ACRIS does have UCCx docs going back before sales were recorded, so if you're patient you can look at every UCC1 for a given co-op and figure out who owns every mortgaged apartment. If no mortgage and it was bought before 2004, then nothing anywhere.

You can combine pshark & ACRIS for faster searching (assuming mtge was taken out). Look on pshark for names of people in the building, then enter into ACRIS.

Here's 2003, for what it's worth:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/pdf/07pdf/sales_manhattan_03.pdf

Thanks, West81st and nyc10023. I'd been missing one of the 2003 sales in my building, and always forget about PropertyShark.

From 2003 onwards ... http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/property/property_val_annual_sales.shtml

West81: I don't see my one 2003 transaction in the list (I did a search by address and block/lot #).

until 2004 public records were not kept on coop sales (except privately by appraisers,brokers,managing agents) coops were considered "stock" trades in private corporations

Looks as if they were kept for 2003, anyway, but haven't made it to ACRIS. E.g., all five sales in my co-op for 2003 are in the PDF cited by West81st above, albeit with no names, but all that's on ACRIS for 2003 are a bunch of UCCx's.

I guess it's like any IT thing: the more ACRIS gives us the more we demand.

Co-op sale prices are "recorded" via transfer tax amounts.

NWT: I did a search with block & lot number(s) and it didn't pick up all the sales for my old apt building.

Maybe data-entry errors? God only knows. A while back I came across a transaction for 771 WEA that'd been recorded as 711 WEA, block/lot #s and all, and there've been others I don't remember. One of these days I'll really dig through the Finance site and see what else I've missed, like that 2003 PDF whose data (incomplete as it is) I'd just assumed to be already on ACRIS.

hey---if people go into hospitals and the wrong operation is performed (occasionally), is it any wonder that there are data entry errors for real estate?

No wonder at all. I feel guilty when I complain that perfection eludes them, remembering as I do what it was like finding things out before so much of it was databased.

Ask many questions in hospitals in front of as many witnesses as possible.

You can go and search where they file UCCs in the City. I cannot remember which department it is but call 311. It is not true that coop purchases were not followed in public records before 2004. Mortgate companies would file a UCC against the stock the owner had with the apartment and could place a lien on it if there was a mortgage default. If there was no mortgage, maybe there was no UCC filed but I would think most coops have mortgages.

Of course there is a public record of coops! How else would a mortgage company know if there was a current mortgage on the property!!

just curious, but if a buyer pays cash for a coop (not unheard of?), does that mean no mortgage, which means no UCC, which means no ACRIS filing? I tried to find information about a coop that I know from other sources must have changed hands within the last ten years and came up with nothing on ACRIS. Does this suggest a cash transaction in the past?

If no mortgage, then no UCC1.

So, before 2003 or so, if you bought a co-op without financing it then there's nothing to find on ACRIS. There'd be records somewhere in the Dept of Finance of whatever taxes were paid on the transaction, but they're not online yet <2003.

MY income tax returns are not posted on the internet by the IRS.

When I buy or sell stocks, it is not posted on the internet by the SEC.

Can someone explain to me why buying and selling real estate is posted on the internet?

Where is the right to privacy?

because property ownership has always been publicly recorded. interesting to think of what would happen if income tax returns were also a matter of public record.

It was probably something that was started in England many centuries ago so that people didn't farm on another person's property, etc. Most of our land laws come from England

Right, a long history of public records to do with RE. For instance, you needed to be able to check up on your neighbors to see what their assessed value was, what land was going for, etc.

I remember going with my mother to City Hall to see what a particular house sold for, after the local newspaper stopped publishing transactions. The papers still do in many places.

Re: income taxes, in the 1910's the NYT would publish the biggest refunds. Why refunds and not tax paid, I dunno.

if someone files a lawsuit against you, however baseless it may or may not be, it is also public record. also probably inherited from the english, the newgate calendar and all that.