building at 66-17 69th Street

From the 11/10/2010 New York Law Journal: A Queens condominium association has lost its three-year battle to bar an owner from keeping a quiet, 3 1/2-pound dog in her apartment. The 24-unit Village View Condominium board has reportedly spent more than $78,000—or about $3,000 per owner—trying to enforce a rule barring pets. However, on Friday, a unanimous Appellate Division, Second Department,... [more]

From the 11/10/2010 New York Law Journal: A Queens condominium association has lost its three-year battle to bar an owner from keeping a quiet, 3 1/2-pound dog in her apartment. The 24-unit Village View Condominium board has reportedly spent more than $78,000—or about $3,000 per owner—trying to enforce a rule barring pets. However, on Friday, a unanimous Appellate Division, Second Department, panel ruled that the pet ban, passed by the board in 2000, is invalid. Rules regarding the rights of individual condominium owners must be set forth in the association's bylaws and cannot be changed by the board "at will," the panel concluded. "[I]nasmuch as the Board seeks to place restrictions on the use of the defendant's unit, it is not authorized to do so, as such restrictions must be set forth in the condominium bylaws," the panel held in Board of Managers v. Forman, 2009-07157. Justices Fred T. Santucci, Ruth C. Balkin, John M. Leventhal and Leonard B. Austin were on the panel. The declaratory judgment and motion for a permanent injunction action was the second dog-related lawsuit filed by the Village View Condominium board against Donata Forman, a mail carrier who bought unit 3D in the Middle Village building in September 2000. In the first suit, the board unsuccessfully sought a ruling that Ms. Forman's previous dog, Rugby, which her teenaged son inherited when her mother died, violated the association's prohibition on pets. This case involved Ms. Forman's second dog, a teacup Yorkshire Terrier named Charlie, which she purchased shortly after Rugby's death in 2006. Now 4 years old and 3.7 pounds, Charlie is by all accounts a quiet dog. Indeed, the decision noted that there have been no reports of anyone at Village View complaining about noise. "He's not one of those yapping little dogs," Ms. Forman said in an interview. "I would get rid of him if he was." Shortly after Ms. Forman purchased Charlie, the Village View condo board initiated the suit, seeking among other orders a permanent injunction barring her from purchasing pets without board permission. The condominium's bylaws do not bar pets, rather, they state that owners "and their pets" shall not disturb other owners. But a 2000 board rule states that "positively no pets are allowed in the building for any reason." In June 2009, Queens Supreme Court Justice Howard Lane (See Profile) declared the rule a valid exercise of the board's authority and granted the board's motion for summary judgment. On Friday, the Second Department reversed. The panel concluded that rules regarding the rights and obligations of individual owners must be set forth in a condominium association's bylaws, citing the seminal 1990 Court of Appeals decision Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apt. Corp., 75 NY2d 530. "The basic agreement among the unit owners as to the manner in which the condominium shall be administered and maintained is set forth in the condominium's bylaws," the panel wrote. The Condominium Act requires that any amendment to those bylaws be approved by at least two-thirds of the association's owners. The Village View's own bylaws, the panel noted, require an even larger majority, 80 percent. The association's no-pets rule was approved by the board itself, not the requisite majority of the owners, and is therefore invalid, the panel concluded. Ms. Forman said, "I'm so excited. This dog means everything to me." Queens solo-practitioner Michael A. Mauro represented Ms. Forman. He blamed the drawn-out litigation on a single board member. "It gets so far," Mr. Mauro said, "because you get somebody on the board who hates pets. This time they went great guns." Kenneth H. Amorello of Schechter & Brucker represented the condo board. Mr. Amorello said the decision will adversely affect the power of condo boards to manage property and that his client will consider seeking leave to appeal. "We think the Supreme Court got it right," Mr. Amorello said. "We think that the board had the power to make this house rule to prohibit pets." Although the board has now amended the bylaws to preclude pets, Mr. Amorello said it has yet to consider whether to try to seek a retroactive application of the amendment to bar Charlie. Stuart M. Saft, the chair of Dewey & LeBoeuf's global real estate department, said the decision "touched on the very difference between a co-op and a condominium": While a co-op board has the complete authority to regulate as it sees fit, a condo board is an agent for its owners. In the Village View suit, said Mr. Saft, who is not involved in the case, "The court has the right to look at this issue because the bylaws don't give the board the authority to make these kinds of rules." He added, "It's really unfortunate [when such issues must be litigated] because none of these condominiums or co-op boards have the wherewithal to litigate these fine points." [less]