Illegal Renovation

And so you did.

Sad but true. This is why i have always stayed away from COOPs. I grew up in one and knew then that the stupid wanna be politicians had no clue what they were doing. My only suggestion is to go back to the board and place the blame on them. They allowed the former renovation to happen under their noses. If they did their jobs they would ahve stopped this from happening or at least supervised the process and require that building approved contractors do the job. Try that approach and please let me know what happens. Regardless that wiring will need to be redone.

You're not going to win with that. Because it is always possible to get work done under the nose of the board/management. If you end up suing, you're only hurting yourself (as a member of the co-op). Just get it rectified, and chalk this one up to experience. Path of least resistance.

agreed but it doesnt hurt to present to the board that they need to be aware of activity like this in the building. there are only so many way to get in and out of a building... they should know when someone is doing any kind of work. I never meant sue on those grounds though. The main thing though you do not want to be "that guy" with all the issues with the board. Just handle it and put it behind you

Thanks guys......they said at least they might waive the work fee that Id have to pay to have the wiring done and I am going to make them stick to that. I think its $1K so at least Ill save myself that. I know suing is a financial waste (would cost me more than I would have to pay to just do the rewiring).

OP would be in the same boat in a condo, jasieg16.

ok now there is a part of the purchase contract when you buy an apartment where the seller must disclose any serious issue with the apartment that they are aware of. doesn't the OP have some recourse to revisit this issue with the seller and their lawyer? they should have been made aware of the electrical issue as part of the disclosures beofre or at the closing - no?

I did some research, found some articles saying in some instances I could sue the seller. However, in my case no one seems to know who, out of all the people who lived in the apt in the past gazillion yrs, did this renovation. There is no record of it. The board is checking with the super to see if he knows anything about it (which in itself is bizarre, since presumably if the super knew, then the building permitted an illegal renovation to go on and did nothing about it).

Probably off topic but what, if any, research or recourse do you believe exists for finding that the 'as builts' for an apartment include space that has been 'reallocated' to an adjacent apartment for a many number of years.. but the shares were never reallocated from the original offering plan?

Do you believe there is any recourse for either adjusting the shares or taking back the space? Do you have the right to see the transfer documents and make sure they ever existed and were legitimately transfered?

techno: Exactly. The super had to know, and he was given some cash to look the other way.

Pay for the re-wiring, and tell them that waiving whatever "work fee"; would be the good-faith thing for them to do, especially since the super is allowing illegal work (electric wiring could cause a fire, if not installed properly.).

Get it all in writing, too.

The super didn't have to be aware. What if the owner did the rewiring himself or had a "visiting" friend do it?

Why did the super have to know? How hard is it to have an electrician visit your apartment without the super's knowledge, assuming he doesn't stand in front of the building monitoring these things? And if it's a prewar that converted to coop in the 80s (as is very common), the renovation could likely have been done as far back as the 1960s.

More to the point, did the coop's electrician estimate the cost of correcting the problem? It might be much less than you think.

I was happy with http://www.leaderelectric.com/ ... you might want to have them give you a quote/estimate.

Oh there is NO doubt in my mind my super knows. He is easily one of the most corrupt individuals I have ever met. I have posted about him on threads before. He offers his services to residents all the time so that they "wont have to go through the board." One of the doormen told me that all he cares about is $ he can extract from the job. And the offhand way the managing agent said he would ask him who it was, says a lot.

Alanhart - I remembered Leader from other posts about this, thanks, I may call them!

Anyway, my main point is that it might be cheap enough not to get so upset on a beautiful day like this.

What did they do? Embed unshielded cable in a plaster wall? Or just an inadequate number of electrical receptacles and that sort of thing?

Sometimes NYC code is so far off from modern US standards that real-world contractors take liberties as a matter of routine, and it's not necessarily a major danger.

And then there are things I wonder about, like long peninsulas/islands that technically (I think) are required to have outlets every 24 inches, which I think probably happens approximately never, given that they have base cabinets beneath and no backsplash above.

tech... im telling you to approach the building with the case i made earlier and they will give up more than the 1k work cost. They are at fault especially if the super knew. Get rid of the super. Again dont sue, but youve got room to work here. Also an inspection could have pointed out at least the warning signs that this unit had some shady work done.

Alan - there is a "BX cable in the wall that is not properly secured and installed" and the outlets may not be properly "grounded." As you can see, I dont quite know the terminology. What had happened was a few months ago, I smelled smoke, ran out to the living room and saw smoke coming out from an outlet. I had literally JUST given birth weeks prior, and ever since I have been terrified of spontaneous fires since I have an infant. I have been trying to get this resolved ever since, back and forth with the managing agent etc, inspections and so forth.

Jasieg - I will try your approach and let you know what happens. The managing agent sounded really guilty on the phone, I will eek out every penny from them, especially if I found out that POS super knew.

Ah the joys of life in a coop....

"The board is checking with the super to see if he knows anything about it (which in itself is bizarre, since presumably if the super knew, then the building permitted an illegal renovation to go on and did nothing about it"

I think this is a very stupid thing for them to do. I agree that if the super knows, then you have a good case for saying the board implicitly approved it since their "agent" was aware of it and they had all the time in the world to get that person to correct it (actually, i would say they had an OBLIGATION to do that). In addition, they should have made you aware of it prior to purchasing the unit.

Most of the good Coop attorneys I know currently have as a rider to the contract that there has been no unauthorized work done in the unit as a representation from the seller which is to survive the closing.

techno: With all respect to Alan:

Not all supers are dishonest, but those who are; are dishonest at every opportunity they get.

You know that your super is dishonest. The tip-off, in any case; is the response that they will ask the super about it. That's code for "The super knew", whenever and whomever the super was at the time.

Otherwise, they would have asked the super about it, first; before responding. Is your super in outer-space, on a NASA mission?! How hard is it, for them to locate the super and ask him about it?

You are correcting a dangerous and potentially deadly hazard -- not just for your unit -- but the entire building. They should apologize and thank you.

I hope you are not talking about as building on east 56. I just spoke to the super to have some renovations done in a co op i am about to purchase and he mentioned having to move wires and that it was not a problem with the board . he is a licensed contractor by the way and wants to be hired to do the renovations

"but those who are; are dishonest at every opportunity they get." ... I agree whole-heartedly. The super of a building across the street from my last bldg. was an all-around sleaze, up to and including wiring his building's tacky exterior Christmas lights to the City lamppost in front. When I confronted him about it, and how embarrassing it is to the owners of his building's units, he said he wasn't stealing electricity. There was something about the way he said that made me think he honestly believed himself. Pathology?

technologic, I'm not electrical, but from what I understand about wiring and what you described, I think it should be pretty minor. BX is metal-shielded, and the metal shield acts as the ground wire. It needs to be attached to a metal "box" (the thing the outlet screws into), not a plastic one, because that also serves as the path to the ground. If that's all it is, I think it's a no-fuss, no muss, cheap sort of job. I hope so, anyway.

Another possibility, even more minor, is that the wires, once attached to the outlet, weren't properly wrapped in electrical tape. Although seemingly secure just spring-clamped or screwed onto the outlet, it isn't, and standard procedure is to tape afterwards as a safeguard against a short. Even less fuss, even less muss. I hope so, anyway.

cbishara: DO NOT, I repeat; DO NOT hire the super to do your renovations.

Alan - thanks so much for your input. I have a call today with the managing agent. I will keep everyone updated.

Cbishara - no my bldg is not on e. 56th. But Truth is completely 100% right - do NOT ever hire the super to do any renovations. You will get what Alanhart has called the "super special" - meaning a subpar job by someone who is not a licensed contractor etc and is just seeking to make $ by convincing residents that they are the best person to do the job. That happened to me - big mistake that I will never repeat. There are SOME supers out there that are contractors (my old building, my super had his own company/was a licensed contractor and he was amazing and so ppl used to him for renovations and were happy and he did a great job every time) but that is the exception to the rule.

Thanks, Techno.