Managing agents run enforcement day to day — the violation letters go out on your letterhead, the fines are posted to your ledger, the complaints come to your office. It is a natural step from there to assuming the proceeding gets brought the same way.
It does not. The obligations being enforced — the proprietary lease, the bylaws, the house rules — run between the resident and the cooperative corporation or the condominium's board of managers. The agent is not a party to them. A proceeding captioned in the agent's name invites a dismissal motion on capacity before anyone reaches the merits, and hands a resident with a bad case an easy win.
We bring enforcement proceedings for buildings and advise managing agents on how to prepare them. Call 212-233-1233 or email [email protected].
Getting the Capacity Right
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The building is the plaintiff
The proceeding is brought by the cooperative corporation or by the board of managers, with the managing agent appearing as agent where appropriate. The board has to authorize it, by resolution, and the resolution should exist before the papers are filed rather than being adopted afterward to paper over a gap.
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Naming the right respondent
The record owner or shareholder, plus any occupant whose possession the building seeks to affect. In a co-op, the shareholder may not be the person living there. Leaving out an occupant means a judgment that cannot be enforced against them.
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Predicate notices
Most enforcement remedies require a notice to cure under the proprietary lease or bylaws before any proceeding. Those notices have to identify the specific provision violated and the specific conduct, and they have to be served the way the governing document requires. Generic warning letters accumulated over two years are not a substitute for a proper predicate notice.
What Buildings Enforce
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Unauthorized alterations
Work done without board approval or an alteration agreement, work that breached one, removal of wet-over-dry protections, combining units, or renovation that affected building systems. Where the work created a violation or damaged other units, the claim includes the cost of correction.
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Unauthorized occupancy and short-term rentals
Illegal sublets, occupants who were never approved, and listing units on short-term rental platforms. Short-term rentals carry regulatory exposure for the building itself, which makes enforcement urgent rather than optional. See also sublets and assignments.
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Nuisance and objectionable conduct
Persistent noise, hoarding, smoke, aggression toward staff or other residents, and conduct that makes the building unlivable for neighbors. In a cooperative, sustained objectionable conduct can support termination of the proprietary lease, which is the most serious remedy a building has and requires careful groundwork — particularly a properly conducted shareholder or board determination, well documented.
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Damage to the building or other units
A leak from an owner's negligence, damage caused by the owner's contractor, or a condition the owner refuses to correct. Governing documents typically make the owner responsible, and the charges can often be added to the account and collected as arrears.
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Refusal of access
An owner who will not permit entry for required work or inspections. Buildings have access rights under the governing documents, and where a resident refuses, a court can compel it. Where the obstacle is that the owner has died rather than refused, see gaining access after the owner's death.
Documentation Decides These Cases
Enforcement cases are won on the record the managing office built before anyone called a lawyer.
- Dated complaint logs identifying who complained and about what, kept contemporaneously
- Photographs and video of conditions, with dates
- Every notice sent, with proof of service or mailing
- Board minutes authorizing enforcement and recording the board's deliberation
- Records showing consistent treatment of similar violations by other residents
- Inspection reports, violation records and any agency correspondence
- Vendor estimates and invoices where the building seeks the cost of correction
Selective Enforcement
The most common and most effective defense a resident raises: that others do the same thing and the building has singled them out.
It is frequently accurate. Buildings tolerate a rule for years, then enforce it against the resident everyone finds difficult. That history is discoverable, and it turns an enforcement proceeding into an examination of the board's motives — territory where the business judgment protection that normally shields board decisions is at its weakest.
The answer is unglamorous: enforce consistently, or adopt a documented policy going forward that applies to everyone and enforce from that point. A building that sends notices to all twelve residents with the same violation is in a far stronger position than one that sends a single notice to the thirteenth.
Speak With Our Firm
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Prepared properly, most of these resolve
A well-drafted notice to cure, supported by a real record and a board resolution, produces compliance in most cases without a filing. The cases that go badly are usually the ones where enforcement began informally, escalated over years of letters, and only then went to a lawyer — by which point the file is full of inconsistencies the resident's counsel will use.
Call 212-233-1233 or email [email protected]. See also defending claims brought by residents.
