Condo Board Rejection?

generally such rejections are permissible for any reason whatsoever except one
which involves illegal discrimination

Let say you can borrow enough money from relatives to pay off the condo in cash but lack the income to keep up with the carrying cost, they would reject you.

Since it's a condo, in order for the board to reject you, it has to come up with another buyer for the same amount or buy it itself.

In other word, the condo board will need to exercise their first right to buy the condo back if there is no other buyer. The seller usually will try to find a new buyer first in that case, because it will take a while for the board to get approval from a cerain percentage of condo owners to excecise the buy back right.

Does anyone know how many times condos have actually exercise first right? Like never?

I am buying an investment property in an outer boro. The condo board rejected a prospective buyer before me for the exact same reason the OP had stated.

The seller didn't want to wait and I picked up the sale for the same price.

I think a condo might exercise its right of first refusal to buy a unit for the building's super

They can't reject a buyer; they just have a right of first refusal (meaning the board can buy the apartment for the agreed-upon price if it so chooses.)

Yes. But in practice, isn't that just an academic factoid? ...Aside from that outer-borough board, which (from the sound of things) operated illegally in simply declining approval.

Story in today's paper about increasing requests for financials, references, etc. when buying a condo resale: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/realestate/condos-demand-more-paperwork-from-buyers.html

Still unanswered is, what happens when you balk and just wait out the period within which the board has to waive its right of first refusal?

yes, condos can reject.

Yes, but not without either buying it themselves, or coming up with an acceptable buyer, under the same terms and conditions.

In practice, though, the stickler is that the seller, when informing the board of the offer and triggering the 20-day (e.g.) clock, must also provide any information about the buyer the board "may reasonably require."

To actually effect a sale without the cooperation of the board and the managing agent would be extremely time-consuming, difficult, and costly, so a buyer unwilling to jump through the hoops would look elsewhere, "elsewhere" being a rental, a new-construction condo, or a sponsor co-op.

So, when people here squawk about co-op rigamarole limiting them to a condo, and being willing to pay the condo premium, they might want to think again.

Don't worry se newbies. NWT only deals with coops. So she's just a self serving Borker. Don't let is discourage you from buying, cause well if you buying in this mkt, then you are also retarded like she is ...... Hawhhahaaaaaa

I recently went through the process of buying a condo apartment and I was surprised at the amount of information (financial information, references etc.) that I needed to supply. It didn't seem at all different from the process for buying a coop apartment except that I did not have a board interview. My impression was that by the time you go throught the process of seeing many apartments, making offers, losing apartments to other people and you finally come to terms with the seller on an apartment, that you are then willing to go throught the process of supplying a tremendous amount of unnecessary information in order to finally buy an apartment. Does anyone really care what schools I went to 20 years ago? But I think that NWT is correct, if you don't supply the requested information the process of getting approval from the board and the managing agent gets very slowed down. What remedies does a buyer or seller have if the board refuses to make a decision on the application?

Sounds like a condo purchase is not the remedy to avoiding gross invasion of privacy. It seems that buying a townhouse is the only solution?

or renting which seems to involve less intrusion.

"I recently went through the process of buying a condo apartment and I was surprised at the amount of information (financial information, references etc.) that I needed to supply."

LEGALLY, condo "boards" are allowed to ask for only three pieces of information: NAME, CURRENT ADDRESS, and TELEPHONE NUMBER.

That's it.

They can certainly pretend to act like grown-up co-op boards and ask for full application packages, but you are within your rights to DECLINE that information, and they have absolutely no legal recourse because they have no legal authority to ask for more than your contact information, period.

In New York, however, because buyers are apparently so pussy-whipped, everyone is afraid to stand up to these bullies, and meekly comply with these illegal and intrusive information requests.

They can ask , but ultimately to reject probably need to exercise right of first refusal.

lol @ Matt

I've lived in both. I prefer condo. For example, I need to rent my unit. Case closed.

lol @ gcondo.

I live in a co-op.

I prefer co-op.

For example, I need to rent my unit.

So I got on the board and led the change to open up our sublet policy to "unlimited".

The board still has absolute control over who rents.

Case closed.

lol, yours is the exception, if in fact what you state is true.

Of course, all it takes is a new election season and some morons to change the policy back.

Point taken.

I think it makes sense that, as discussed here, even all-cash buyers may be rejected if they don't have sufficient income to cover the monthlies and other expenses. Today, I am thinking about a slightly different scenario...

I have recently heard about coop boards rejecting prospective buyers due to low pricing of the units, presumably in an attempt to protect the property value of the bldg. [By the way, though, this sounds somewhat misguided to me because letting the current owners go into bankruptcy sounds more damaging to the bldg. in the end, with unpaid maintenance fees, lengthy short-sale or foreclosure sale processes which would probably result in low sale prices anyhow, etc.]

Now, does the same happen in condos? In other words, if the prospective buyers are financially and otherwise strong, would condo boards reject them because the apartments are priced too low? Any thoughts?

I would think that the condo could just buy the apartment and resell it although in practice it would be a pain.
One of the main reasons that I bought a condo was that I wanted to be able to sell my apartment to whomever I chose at whatever price I needed at that time and not be told that my applicant would be rejected by a coop board for any reason they choose.

"Now, does the same happen in condos? In other words, if the prospective buyers are financially and otherwise strong, would condo boards reject them because the apartments are priced too low? Any thoughts?"

As others have noted, the condo board can't really reject buyers, they can just exercise their first right of refusal and buy the unit on the same terms as the original buyer. This doesn't seem to prevent the unit from trading at too low a price, so it seems like there's never an incentive for a condo board to do this. The one exception might be if they thought the unit were really trading well below the market and thought they could make more money buy buying it and reselling it, as lobster notes. Seems like a bit of a stretch, though.

When this came out, I remember reading that a broker or two said that it was the only instance they had heard of in 30 years where the condo board exercised its right of first refusal:

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/17153-which-is-the-bigger-ponzi-scheme

Thanks so much for your quick replies!

>...I wanted to be able to sell my apartment to whomever I chose at whatever price I needed at that time...

That's how I feel about this, as well. Once the condo boards begin to act like coop boards (no matter how you call it--rejecting or refusing), many would think twice about paying more for condos, I'd think.

>The one exception might be if they thought the unit were really trading well below the market
>and thought they could make more money buy buying it and reselling it

Sounds as unethical as insider trading, but who am I to judge? Still, say, a distressed seller is trying to get rid of his/her apt. The condo board gets involved and delays the process, further aggravating the situation for the seller... Plus, in the current market climate, there's no way of telling how much the unit might sell for or how long it might take to sell. I feel as though the potential cost outweighs the potential benefit.

>When this came out, I remember reading that a broker or two said that it was the only instance
>they had heard of in 30 years where the condo board exercised its right of first refusal:

Wow, this is interesting! This sounds quite unethical, but, again, who am I to judge... I am just relieved to hear that this almost never happens.

I am going through this right now (as a condo seller). We'll still get our price, but our buyer is out of luck. It is mainly an annoyance with regard to the delay inclosing on the place we want to buy once we sell this one.