Case Study

In Record Time Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. Counsels and Negotiates a Favorable Settlement Saving Client Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars

A shareholder of a luxury midtown Manhattan co-op was approached by their building’s co-op board who needed to make repairs to the building’s facade as required by the City’s Local Law 1198 (“LL1198”). In order to make these repairs the co-op needed to occupy our clients Penthouse roof for 4-5 months, destroying the expensive decking, and damaging our client’s expensive plantings, in order to stage and anchor “drop scaffolding” from the roof, causing significant expense for the shareholder. The shareholder approached Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. to assist in this matter.

With a time-frame of less than a week before the roof work was set to begin Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. attorneys needed to prepare a strategy immediately. Our attorneys began by reviewing the relevant coop and shareholder documents, statutes, codes, and case law, contacting local architects, engineers, and contractors and preparing a letter to the co-op board outlining the shareholder’s rights, risks to the coop if it moved forward with its planned roof work, and potential alternatives that the building should explore.We also arranged for our client to meet with a new architect who reviewed the roof plan and the coop’s rationale for the repairs and suggested series of less intrusive options to address the facade and scaffolding issues. Armed with this information and our extensive research, our client was confident that the roofing crisis could likely be averted and was able to reach a consensus with the board without engaging in litigation. Our attorney’s extensive research and calculated approach to the matter assisted in diffusing a tense situation, and producing a positive result for our client, despite an expedited and demanding schedule.

Eric Askanase, John Desiderio, and Israel Katz of the real estate litigation group at Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. represented the shareholder in this matter.