Re: Can Co-oops Allow Roommates?

I live in a coop and I try to casually ask my doorman when I have questions I don't want to ask the board or management company. Usually they have experienced many of these issues and know the precendents. They sometimes don
't know, but it's worth a shot

why ask...just have your "cousin" stay with you.

coops have house rules and bylaws that define this stuff. you should've received / reviewed a copy before you bought... If not, just ask the management company to send you a copy.

Can your lover move in with you without the board's approval?

My distaste for co ops stems from the manner is which some boards have no compunctions about impinging on the private lives of owners. In my co-op (the last co op purchase I will ever make), a lovely woman who had lived there quietly for years had a change in personal and financial circumstances and had to take a roommate. The Chairman of the Board suggested that since she was making money "off the assets" of building, she should pay 10% of the rent she received to the co op.

I objected on grounds that it was an invasion of her privacy and that the apt was her private investment and we had no right to "tax" her for anything she made especially since it was a personal compromise to take in a roommate. I was over ruled on the basis that room mates, like renters, are more wear and tear on the public spaces as they don't care about house rules in the same way owners cared. So, I retorted that by the same argument, we should charge a fee for every grandchild that stayed overnight for wear and tear on the building not to mention the noise that violated house rules. Also, any grandparent caring for a child should be charged 10% of a standard day care fee since they were reaping financial advantage for their family "off the assets" of the building.

The Chair of the Board capitulated (he had many grand children that made an inordinate amount of noise). Co op members don't often don't see how their arbitrary rules violate personal privacy until it is brought into their own field of experience.

My advice -- move into a condo. Or just say your lover is moving in with you and see how far your neighbors are willing to get into your personal life

Coop boards do not have "chairmen".

Coops suck. Buy a house.

You have the right to a roommate in a coop. There is nothing your coop can do to prevent you from having a roommate and they have no right to screen your roommate.
Read this thread:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/23351-buying-coop-for-elderly-parents
Also google NYC roommate law Coops

... as long as it's not Bobby Short: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20076676,00.html

Cmon Alan, you shoehorned that link in knowing it has nothing to do with the OP's question. GV is not a shareholder. She has no rights.

By law in NYC, no one need live alone. You have the RIGHT to have ONE roommate irregardless of if you are renting, or own a co-op or condo. This law supercedes any rental agreement, house rules or bylaws. The roommate however has limited power to stay on after the actual tenent leaves except if meeting the conditions in a rent controlled/stabilized situation.

"Irregardless" is not a word. The word is regardless, meaning without regard. If irregardless were a word, the "ir" prefix would essential negate the meaning of the rest of the word and it would be a double-negative within a single word. It would mean to be not without regard; that is, irregardless would mean roughly "because" if it were a word.

Thanks, Kyle--that's long been one of my pet peeves :-)

Vinnysny, NYS has a law called "The Roommate Law", which essentially states the allowance of tenants with leases to have roommates without interference from their landlords. While many RE laws to protect tenants do not apply to co-ops, the roommate law overrides proprietary lease provisions that limit occupancy.

I've seen hundreds of co-op sublease packages from various buildings which stipulates attempts to limit occupancy to cooperators and their immediate families, but the cooperator may nevertheless have an unrelated roommate.

Co-Ops do have an enormous amount of autonomy under the governance from their house rules, and at times shielded from judicial scrutiny. They are not HOWEVER, above the law.

You are legally free to not only have a roommate, but can also house their children of that roommate without interference from your board and without regard to the orientation of the parties involved.

It should be noted however, that the roommate law does not go so far as to allow cooperators to circumvent the coops subletting policies, meaning that you or your partner (or shareholder) must also reside in the apartment as its primary residence in order to benefit from the protection of the roommate law.

Hope this helps, and best of luck!

tak. great info.

kylewest, that's a great entry -- "irregardless" is not now, never has been, never shall be, a word. I originally took the handle "graffiti grammarian" because I often have the urge to post simliar msgs ;-)

The word is NOT "regardless" ... or at least not necessarily. It could also be irrespective. Will everybody please stop jumping to conclusions as to what ziptalker was trying to talk.

VinnySny, good luck trying to sell your place later on if the coop board is resistant, but you choose to put your foot down and exercise your legal right under the law.

Alan, explain the difference between flammable and inflammable.

First, I think all of you have gone nuts: the use of "irregardless" is celebrated here on SE. Second, ziptalker's post is so riddled with grammatical mistakes that the use of "irregardless" is the least of the problems. I count at least 6 other problems. Not that it matters, but as long as we're picking on grammatical errors.

Re: regardless, in that same posting the OP misspells supercedes. Supercedes is usually considered a mispelling of supersedes. Those of us who studied Latin realize that it is a confusion between cedere and sedere, the latter (the infinitive for sit) being the appropriate root. Supersede may be the only English word ending in sede, so it is indeed, an easy mistake to make.

"kylewest, that's a great entry -- "irregardless" is not now, never has been, never shall be, a word."

Uh, that's not how language works. If it's used enough, it becomes a word no matter how illogical you may find it. Webster's certainly acknowledges the word and specifically states "There is such a word, however":

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

So there you have it, we can use the word irregardless of what the word Nazis declare ;).

It also points out that the most frequently repeated remark about the word is that "there is no such word", which I find humorous as people think they are correcting a mistake but are instead stating something incorrect. No question that it is not a "good" word in that it has not yet found widespread acceptance, but certainly above the standing of, say, "azz" which no one seems to correct w67th on.

>but certainly above the standing of, say, "azz" which no one seems to correct w67th on.

When you see a talking ape or dog, it seems a bit much to criticize the animal's spelling.

There's even a website devoted to the topic entitled "Irregardless.org your teacher lied to you":

http://irregardless.org

The point is that you can never say never, even in its standing as a nonstandard word. Apparently the nonstandard word "snuck" sneaked itself into proper English at some point.

My mother insists that the irregular conjugation "shat" is the correct word to use. But maybe she's fancier than Messrs. Merriam and Webster.

Nope, Messrs. Merriam and Webster declare "shat" a proper word.

Mother knows best.

Thanks TakkYamaguchi for the helpful information. I appreciate you staying on topic.

My pleasure. Glad I could help!

can a person have two unrelated roommates in an apartment?

I own a condo and have 2 friends as roomates, one of who talked about having a rental agreement to a boardmember. I immediately got a letter from the board that my roomates have to vacate. according to the by-laws the apartment can only be rented out as a whole, not in parts.

I am seeing a comment by ziptalker..is this true?
"By law in NYC, no one need live alone. You have the RIGHT to have ONE roommate regardless of if you are renting, or own a co-op or condo. This law supercedes any rental agreement, house rules or bylaws."

does anyone have advise for me? where can I find this law?
should I say that no-one pays rent? kick one roomate out?
what to do?

does one have to prove romantic relations to be able to live with who they want?
I bought a condo and a big apartment to be able to live with people. can they actually enforce that I have to live alone unles it's a non-paying person?
I would like to live in an honest situation and not have to make up stories...any advise here?
thanks.

The law (search for 235-f) was written in a way that discuss leases, so my understanding is that it was extended by the courts to coops (which use proprietary leases) ... but not to condos.

Look at the exact language of your by-laws ... most are drawn up from boilerplate. Most support the traditional spirit of a condo, which is much less restrictive in nature than a coop.

I doubt there's specific language about "renting in parts", which you're not doing anyway, any more than a family sharing the space would. As long as you're in residence, it's a very different situation from what might be targeted by any such language. Carefully parse out what it does and does not state.