A property management company occupies an unusual legal position. You sign contracts, serve notices, hire vendors, and appear in court files — but the building is not yours. You act for a disclosed principal, and almost every dispute you are drawn into raises the same two questions: what authority did your management agreement actually give you, and who is the real party in interest.
That is why a managing agent should not simply rely on the board's counsel. Building counsel represents the co-op corporation or the condominium's board of managers. When the board and the managing agent disagree — over a termination, a fee, an accounting, or who is responsible for a decision that went badly — those interests separate, and you need your own lawyer.
If you manage residential or mixed-use buildings in New York City and need counsel of your own, the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin can help. Call us at 212-233-1233 or email [email protected].
How We Help Property Management Companies
Collecting Arrears on a Unit
Unpaid maintenance and unpaid common charges are the most common matters a managing agent refers to counsel, and they run on two completely different legal tracks. Which building you manage determines which remedy you have, how fast it moves, and what it costs.
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Co-op maintenance arrears
A cooperative shareholder who stops paying maintenance is in default under a proprietary lease, not a deed. That makes the remedy a landlord-tenant remedy: a notice to cure, a notice of termination, and a holdover proceeding, with the shares and lease subject to a UCC Article 9 sale once terminated. The sequence is technical and the notices are strictly construed — a defective predicate notice restarts the whole process.
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Condominium common charge arrears
A condominium unit owner holds a deed, so there is no lease to terminate. The board's leverage is the common charge lien under the Real Property Law, which can be filed and then foreclosed much like a mortgage, or pursued as a money judgment against the owner personally. Choosing between the lien and the personal judgment — or pursuing both — depends on the unit's equity, the mortgage position, and whether the owner is collectible.
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Occupants who are not the owner
Arrears frequently surface alongside a unit occupied by someone other than the record owner: an unauthorized subtenant, a family member who stayed on, or an occupant nobody at the building can identify. Who is in possession changes who must be named and served, and naming the wrong party is the most common reason a collection case has to be started over.
When the Unit Owner Has Died
This is the situation that stalls longest, and it is the one where our firm's practice is unusual: we handle both the building side and the Surrogate's Court side. A managing agent facing a deceased shareholder usually needs someone who can do both, because the obstacle is rarely the co-op law — it is that there is no living person with legal authority over the apartment.
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Arrears accruing after the owner's death
Maintenance and common charges do not stop when the owner dies. They accrue against an estate that may have no appointed representative, and there may be no one to bill, no one to serve, and no one with authority to sell. If the family has not opened an estate, the building can be left watching the balance grow for a year or more.
The way out is usually to stop waiting for the family. A creditor of an estate — and an unpaid co-op or condominium is a creditor — has standing to petition the Surrogate's Court to compel the appointment of an administrator, or to have the Public Administrator step in. Once a fiduciary is appointed, there is finally someone to serve, negotiate with, and take payment from.
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Apartments that cannot be accessed
A locked unit whose owner has died is an operational emergency, not just a legal one. Water is coming through the ceiling of the unit below, a gas inspection cannot be completed, or the building needs entry for required work and there is nobody who can lawfully consent. Entering without authority exposes the building and the managing agent to liability for the contents; waiting exposes them to the damage.
There is a defensible path here that depends on the proprietary lease or bylaws' right of entry, the nature of the emergency, careful documentation and inventory, and where time permits, an order from the court. What a managing agent should not do is make that call informally and hope it is never questioned.
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Both at once
The common case combines them: the owner died, nobody opened an estate, the arrears are climbing, the unit is sealed, and the building needs the apartment sold to be made whole. Handled as one matter rather than two, the Surrogate's Court appointment and the building's collection remedy can be moved in parallel instead of in sequence.
Your Management Agreement
The management agreement decides most of what happens later — the scope of your authority, whether the board indemnifies you when a resident sues, how the engagement can be ended, and what you owe on the way out. It deserves attention when it is signed, not when it is invoked.
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Negotiating and drafting the agreement
The provisions that matter most are the ones rarely negotiated: indemnification and defense obligations, limits on personal and corporate liability, spending authority without board approval, the standard of care, insurance requirements on both sides, fee escalators, and what counts as cause for termination.
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Taking over a building
An incoming managing agent inherits whatever the last one left behind, including problems that predate the engagement. Getting complete books, records, keys, contracts, litigation files, and violation histories from a departing agent is often difficult, and an agent who takes over without a documented turnover can find itself answering for the prior agent's period.
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Leaving a building
A departing agent has real obligations — final accountings, records turnover, transfer of funds — and real exposure, especially where the board is withholding final fees or beginning to blame the outgoing agent for what the new one discovers. Departures are where management disputes most often turn into claims.
Disputes With the Board
When a managing agent and its board fall out, the agent cannot use building counsel — that lawyer represents the other side of the disagreement. These matters need separate counsel from the first letter.
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When the board sues the management company
Boards sue their agents for breach of the management agreement, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence in supervising vendors or staff, and mishandling of building funds. The first moves matter more than the eventual defense: preserve the records, notify your errors and omissions carrier promptly, and read the indemnification clause before responding, because the agreement may obligate the building to defend you in the very dispute the board is bringing.
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When the management company sues the board
Unpaid management fees, fees withheld after a termination, reimbursable expenses advanced on the building's behalf, wrongful termination of the agreement, and enforcement of the indemnification the board agreed to. An agent is often owed money precisely when the relationship has ended badly, and the claim is straightforward if the agreement and the records support it.
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Disputes short of litigation
Most disagreements — over scope, authority, a decision the board second-guesses, or a termination in progress — are better resolved before either side files. A negotiated exit or a clarified scope of authority usually costs less than proving who was right.
Disputes With Residents
Residents name the managing agent routinely, sometimes because the agent is genuinely a proper party and often simply because the agent is the name on every notice they have ever received.
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When a resident sues the management company
Claims for water damage and conditions in the unit, personal injury on the premises, discrimination and failure to accommodate, harassment allegations, and mishandled complaints. An agent acting within its authority for a disclosed principal frequently has strong grounds to be dismissed from the case entirely — and separately, a right to be defended and indemnified by the building. Both should be raised early.
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When the management company pursues a resident
House rule and bylaw enforcement, unauthorized alterations, unauthorized occupants and short-term rentals, nuisance and objectionable conduct, and damage caused to the building or to other units. The threshold question is whether the agent brings the proceeding in its own name or in the name of the corporation or board — getting that wrong is grounds for dismissal.
Disputes With Vendors and Contractors
Managing agents sign vendor contracts, and vendors sue whoever signed. Whether the agent is a party or merely an agent for a disclosed principal usually turns on the signature block and the contract language.
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Claims against vendors
Defective or abandoned work, overbilling, failure to perform on capital projects, and warranty claims. Where a contractor has filed a mechanic's lien against a building over disputed work, the lien and the underlying contract dispute are handled together.
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Claims by vendors
A vendor suing for nonpayment will typically name the management company alongside the building, especially where the agent signed the contract. The defense usually begins with agency: an agent contracting for a disclosed principal is not personally liable on the contract, unless the signature or the terms made it so.
Closings and Transfers
Every sale in a building you manage generates work that lands on your desk with a deadline attached, and errors in it are expensive in a way that is hard to undo after the closing.
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The managing agent's role at closing
Arrears and payoff letters, questionnaires to lenders, waivers of the right of first refusal in condominiums, consent and recognition agreements, stock and lease transfers, flip taxes, and the transfer documents the agent is asked to sign. A payoff letter that understates what is owed can leave the building holding the shortfall after the unit has changed hands.
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Transfers that are not ordinary sales
Estate transfers, transfers into and out of trusts, refinances, and sublets and assignments each carry their own approval and documentation requirements. We also represent buyers and sellers directly in co-op and condominium purchases, including sponsor unit closings.
Landlord-Tenant and Building Compliance
The recurring work of managing rental and mixed-use buildings, handled for the owner or for the agent.
- Nonpayment proceedings and holdover proceedings
- Good Cause Eviction coverage analysis, notices and compliance
- HPD and DOB violations, certifications and OATH hearings
- Rent stabilization compliance, registrations and overcharge claims
- Representation of building owners in landlord-tenant matters
- Tenant buyout agreements
- Unauthorized sublets and assignment disputes
- Commercial space in your buildings: retail, restaurant and office leases, and commercial lease disputes
- Capital projects: mechanic's liens and RPAPL 881 license agreements for access to adjoining property
- Damage from adjacent construction affecting a building you manage
Why a Managing Agent Needs Its Own Counsel
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Speak with our firm
Building counsel represents the building. For most of what a managing agent does, that alignment holds — but it breaks exactly when you need a lawyer most: when the board blames you, when a resident names you personally, when a vendor sues over a contract you signed, or when an engagement ends badly. Having counsel who already knows your agreements and your portfolio shortens every one of those conversations.
We work with managing agents across New York City on both ongoing portfolio matters and individual disputes. Call 212-233-1233 or email [email protected].
